Final Four of the FIVB World League – An Overview
The final round matches of the FIVB World League came to their close on Friday, July 6, 2012 in Sofia, Bulgaria after the six teams that had been divided into two pools had played their part. After the closure of the final round matches, the semi finals are scheduled to be held between the four teams that have qualified. These four teams are the two best teams from Pool E as well as Pool F each.
The teams that found themselves in Pool E of the tournament were the United States, the home team of Bulgaria and Germany. On the other hand, Pool F consisted of Poland, Cuba as well as Brazil.
The pool leader of Pool E is USA as the team has been able to secure four points after winning one match and losing one as well. The second place in the pool goes to Bulgaria which has managed to bag three points. The home team also won one match and lost one but the difference in points between USA and Bulgaria is due to the fact that the two teams have a different set ratio. USA records a higher set ratio of 1.118 as it has won five sets but lost three whereas the set ratio of Bulgaria is 0.946 after winning three sets and losing four in comparison. The Germans are at the bottom of Pool E with two points.
The Pool F standings after the completion of the final round of the tournament have Poland as the pool leader with five points. Poland has been able to put up an impressive performance after winning two matches and losing none. On second place in the pool stands Cuba with three points which they have bagged after one win and one loss. Apart from this, Brazil is at the bottom of the pool with a single point as it has not been able to win any match but has lost two.
The first semi final match of the tournament is scheduled to take place between USA and Cuba while the second one will be between Poland and the home team.
The last match that USA has played in the tournament was against Bulgaria in which the Americans dealt a clean sweep to the home team at the following set scores: 25-21, 25-16 and 25-17.
The captain of the American squad, Clayton Stanley, made the following comments at the press conference after his team had won the match, “We played a great match with better side-outs than yesterday. There were some changes since yesterday and we passed the ball and served really well. Now we look forward to the semi finals.”
On the other hand, the last match that Poland played also ended in a sweep that was made over Cuba. The Polish side bagged three straight sets at the following final set scores: 25-23, 25-20 and 25-23.
The Polish captain, Marcin Mozdzonek, expressed himself at the win by giving the following statements, “We are satisfied with the victory today. Now we are going to stay and watch the next match between Bulgaria and USA to see who our opponent will be and I believe the Cuban players will do the same.”
The final match of the tournament is scheduled to be played on July 8. It remains to be seen which two teams are able to make it till the title match of the championship.
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