Brazil looks justified favourite to win the World League – Volleyball News
The defending champion of 2011 FIVB World League, Brazil has been making shocking waves in Pool F of the Final Round.
Team Brazil has appeared in two matches of the Final Round so far and it has shown tremendous progress. They finished the previous preliminary round with maximum points in Pool A and further confirmed their intent to defend the title with brilliant performance
in the recent matches of the Final Round. They pulled off success against Cuba in a five-set tiring match on Wednesday, July 6 and continued with success in the next match against archrivals U.S. Team.
The second match was held at the same Ergo Arena in Polish City Gdansk on Thursday, July 7. Brazil won the match by posting 3-1 (15-25, 25-22, 25-22, and 25-15). More than 3’000 spectators made their presence felt by cheering at their favourite teams and
players. U.S. side dominated the Brazilians in opening set of the match. The claimed the first set with good margin of 10 points. The head coach Alan Knipe was happy about a solid start by his team but he didn’t know that they would face a real disaster in
following sets. Brazilian players came out of sheep clothes and attacked like hungry wolves. They didn’t stop unless the scoreboard showed their better status. Brazil captured last three sets of the game in a row and claimed win over America.
Victory against U.S. team provided two points to Brazil and currently they are staying in number-2 slot in pool ranking. Brazil is strongly tipped to make it to the final showdown of the tournament.
The Brazilian Head Coach Bernardo Rezende shared his thoughts after the second match. He said that if Brazilian team wishes to win, they need to stay fully focused on every single point of the game. The South American squad (Brazil) has the next big challenge
to clash with Russian Team on Friday, July 8. Silver-medallist Russian team has compiled a better record of wins throughout the tournament and it is likely that they will give a hard time to Brazil.
In this regard, Rezende said, “We have to control their strong serve and find a solution for their tall blockers. I will probably change 1-2 players, to give them an opportunity to play. I will need the whole team in the decisive moments of this tournament.”
Likewise, the Captain of Brazilian team Gilberto Godoy Filho (Giba) sees a tough battle with Russia in the next match. He expressed views in the following manner, “There’s another great team ahead of us – Russia and it will be the next difficult step on
the road to the title.”
Match against Russia is the real test of spike and defence capabilities of Brazilian. Nonetheless, Brazil has the experience of beating Russia in the finals of 2010 FIVB World League. It will surely serve as a competitive edge for defending champions. If
Brazil manages to hold off Russia in today’s match, situation will become favourable for them to secure the 10th FIVB World League Title.
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