2024-06-10 21:54:23
Textual content: Raul del Pino
Foto: RL Hevia
After weeks of excessive expectations and meticulous preparation, the long-awaited day arrived for the lads’s nationwide volleyball workforce. The Cuba workforce of debutant coach Jesús Cruz begins its journey within the Nations League (VNL) this Tuesday in opposition to the highly effective Brazil, the primary impediment in its difficult path in the direction of the Paris Olympic Video games.
The South American workforce is the host of one of many teams of the primary section of the VNL 2024 and already has the ticket to the summer season occasion in its pocket, so its fundamental goal is none apart from to return to the rostrum that it has not occupied because the 2021 version, after they lifted the title.
The final precedent between each squads dates again to the pre-Olympic match held final September, exactly in South American territory, the place the Antilleans suffered a expensive 1-3 defeat that in the end opened the doorways to qualification for the Brazilians.
Realizing that they’ll have an opponent of historic caliber on the opposite aspect of the online of their first presentation, the Caribbean workforce might want to deploy their weapons to perfection in a Maracanazinho that may undoubtedly be packed to offer assist to the locals.
Given the identified losses in current weeks of key gamers within the current previous reminiscent of Jesús Herrera, Miguel Ángel González or Ángel Miguel González, the Cuban helmsman will use Michael Sánchez within the reverse place, who will show stripes of expertise alongside captain Roberlandy Simón .
Each figures with greater than 15 years of worldwide expertise will lead a beginning sextet that additionally consists of the workforce’s two star assistants, Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez and Marlon Yant, passer Christian Thondike and libero Yonder García. These males carried the load within the two warm-up video games Cuba misplaced in Argentina over the weekend.
As soon as the difficult debut in opposition to Brazil is settled, the Cubans will subsequent measure forces with two different rivals of equal or larger power, and who’re additionally assured of their presence underneath the 5 rings: on Thursday the twenty third in opposition to Germany and on Friday the twenty fourth in opposition to Japan.
As if that weren’t sufficient, they’ll full their participation within the first week of the competitors with Iran, a direct rival searching for a spot within the French capital, on Saturday the twenty fifth. Allow us to keep in mind that the final passports to the Olympic volleyball match shall be outlined by the world rating when the VNL qualifying section concludes.
To this point, seven of the 12 locations have already been distributed, that are held by Germany, Brazil, the US, Japan, Poland and Canada, along with the host and monarch of Tokyo 2020, France.
For the remaining 5 tickets, Italy (third within the rating), Argentina (sixth), Slovenia (seventh), Serbia (ninth), Cuba (eleventh), Netherlands (thirteenth), Turkey (14th) and Iran ( fifteen).