The 19th edition of the FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship is all ready and four hours later will start it’s first match!! All 16 participating teams are ready to show up at the two venues in Brno and Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic. All is set for the tournament to take off and the first whistle will sound at 12:30 local time today to mark the beginning of the ten-day race for World Championship honors.
For the first three competition days, the 16 teams are divided into four round-robin pools of four teams each. The winners and the runners-up of all pools will then continue the battles for the medals in Brno, while the rest will play for the distribution of the places from 9th to 16th in Ceske Budejovice.
Pool A ( in Brno)
Host team Czech Republic together with Canada, Morocco and Poland will meet up in the DRFG Arena. Poland is two time gold medalist of the 1997 and 2003 edition, which places them among the favorites at this championship.
Pool B ( in Brno)
Defending champion Russia, by far the most decorated team in the history of the U21 World Championship with three consecutive crown, will face the 2017 U21 Pan American Cup silver medallist, Cuba in their first match of Pool B. USA and Turkey will battle for their first victory in the opening match of Pool B.
Pool C (in Ceske Budejovice)
For sure will be a very competitive pool including four strong teams: Argentina, Ukraine, Italy and Iran. The Italians have won five medals in the history of the competition (three silver and two bronze), but never the title. Iran was the bronze medalist of the 2007 edition. Argentina have bagged medals at three of the last four editions of the U21 World Championship, most recently with a 2015 silver.
Pool D ( in Ceske Budejovice)
Two Asian teams, China and Japan will serve as the overture to the competition in Pool D. Another match will be a clash between the second most decorated team in the history of the competition, Brazil, and 2017 African U21 champions Egypt. The South American giants have won four gold, six silver and three bronze medals over their 18 participations. They have never missed a U21 World Championship.
First Day Match Schedule:
Source: FIVB
