On Monday in Congress Hall in Palce of Culture and Science in Warsaw we had drawing of lots for upcoming Men’s World Championships in Poland. Inaugural match will be played at National Stadium in Warsaw!
Results of Draw:
With the 24 participating teams successfully drawn across the four pools, Poland Volleyball Federation President Miroslaw Przedełski confirmed that Poland will host Serbia in the 58,000 capacity football stadium to open the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014.
The Volleyball World Championships return to an open stadium after more than sixty years. Moscow 1952 was the last time the Volleyball World Championships were played in an open stadium.
Competition’s Formula:
First Round: 24 teams in 4 Pools, matches will be played in following cities:
A: Wrocław
B: Katowice
C: Gdańsk
D: Kraków
Second Round: Top 4 teams from each pool go to this round. Pool A goes with D – Pool E, while Pool B goes with C – pool F. Pool E will play in Łódź and Bydgoszcz, Pool F in Katowice and Wrocław.
Third Round: Top 3 teams from each pool go here and will play in Kraków (Pool G) and Łódź (Pool H). First teams will go directly to pools, while second and third ranked in pools will be drawn to pools. There will be Round Robin in each pool.
Finals: Top 2 from each pool will play in Final Round in Katowice.
As we can see qualification process is still running, we don’t know participants from Africa (CAVB) and North America with Caribbean (NORCECA). Seeding from these federations probably will be determined by FIVB Ranking, so if we don’t see any surprises during qualification games, teams qualified should be:
NORCECA: USA (1), Cuba (2), Canada (3), Puerto Rico (4), Mexico (5). Next ranked here are Dominican Republic and Bahamas.
CAVB: Tunisia (1), Egypt (2), Cameroon (3), next ranked are Morocco and Algeria.
Definitely the toughest pool from these is pool D, with Italy, Iran, France, Belgium and probably USA and Puerto Rico. Here the competition should be the toughest, because even Belgium isn’t an outsider.
