With the ticket to Paris 2024 in the pocket, the men’s volleyball team This Sunday he celebrated another enormous achievement. Because for the second consecutive season they reached the Final Round of the League of Nationswhich will be played between Thursday and Sunday in Lodz, Poland. The team led by Marcelo Mendezwho finished eighth in the first phase table, will clash on Friday in the quarterfinals with Sloveniathe best of the initial stage and the one that sealed the blue and white classification for the playoffs by beating this Sunday Serbia.
Argentina had traveled to Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital, for the final week of preliminary round competition with a double objective. He fulfilled the first and most important goal, getting an Olympic berth, on Thursday, with a victory in straight sets against Türkiye and another hand from the owner of the house, who won shortly after Cuba, one of the direct rivals of the albicelestes in the race towards the Games. And on Saturday, after defeating Bulgaria by 3 to 0 (25-22, 25-17 and 25-20) in their last match of the phase, they were one step away from making the second a reality: the quarterfinals of the League. I needed certain results to happen this Sunday to move forward. And the results were given.
The first one came from Manila, Philippines, the headquarters of the other group that was played this week. Over there, Japan won in three sets against USA and he made the scenario very clear: the Argentines depended only on the clash between Slovenes and Serbs. A victory for the first, classified it. A victory for the second team left them out because it put the Balkans in the playoffs. And, although with suspense, destiny smiled upon them again. Luciano De Cecco and company.
In front of their audience, Slovenia did not have an easy time, but they won in five sets by 25-13, 25-27, 25-14, 22-25 and 15-12 and took first place in the general table. moving to Polandnumber one in the world and current champion of the competition, to second place.
The Argentines closed the first stage with 18 points, thanks to six wins and six losses, just one unit more than Cuba and Serbia. And, as they had done last year, they will play the Final Round.
They will now have one of the biggest challenges, because they will clash with the Slovenian team, the most consistent of the first stage, which only lost one of the twelve games it played, in the second week of action, at the beginning of June in Fukuoka against Japan.
The duel will close the quarterfinals on Friday at 8 p.m. in Lodz (15 p.m. in Argentina). In the first shift of that day, Italia (3rd of the first stage) will face France (6th). And on Thursday, Japan (4°) y Canada (5th) they will open the action and then they will collide Poland (2°) y Brazil (7th). On Saturday there will be the semis and on Sunday, the duel for third place and the final.
In the last edition, the albiceleste team finished fifth in the preliminary round with a record of 9-3 and fell 3 to 0 (25-17, 25-13 and 25-14) against Italia (4th) in quarters.
Beyond the hope of closing the League in the best way, the national team is now aiming with everything for Paris, where it will play the Games for the fourth consecutive time, something that has never happened before.
debuted in Los Angeles 1984 and then participated in the editions of Seoul 1988, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016 y Tokio 2020. In the French capital he will go for the third medal in his history, after the bronzes he won in the South Korean event 36 years ago and in the Japanese Games three years ago.
In the Games that will begin in just over a month, three members of the team will make history. De Cecco and Facundo Conte They will become the first Argentine volleyball players to play in four Games. And Méndez, the only coach to coach a team in this sport in two Olympic events.
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