TM Volleyball tops group A

[webmaster]

[O-ZoNe]

Someone enlighten me, how does seeding and pooling in this tournament work? Why were so many top teams in Irans group?

[Ab-Gosht]

Someone enlighten me, how does seeding and pooling in this tournament work? Why were so many top teams in Irans group?

8 best teams are in top 2 groups. other groups are only lower ranked teams

[webmaster]

A and B are the top teams according to their latest performance and points that they picked up. The rest of teams are just there as tourists and bringing sponsors and ofcourse to warm up the courts and to UN-Iron the net so that big teams such as Iran will just come and play

[O-ZoNe]

So do teams from lesser pools (non-A or B) have a chance to advance? What is the stature of the world league? Is this like the soccer world cup? What's the most important tournament? Is it the Olympics? Sorry my wife is really big into vball, but some of these details she didn't explain too well to me

[Bi-honar]

O-Zone jaan, I'm no expert on the topic and have some questions of my own, but I'll try to answer some of your questions,

1 - Teams from Pools C/D and E (i.e. Group 2) have a chance to advance to the Group 1 Final, but only one team makes it from those 3 pools to that most important part of the competition which includes 6 teams (Iran being one of them of course via this historic performance in the intercontinental round )

2 - The international competition that would be most similar to the football World Cup is the World Championship. That one is the oldest competition, it takes place on a 4 year cycle, its qualification process is regional and its format is more or less like the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

3 - The World League is a relatively new competition (compared to the World Championship), but it has become a very important one and FIVB is constantly expanding it to promote volleyball.

4 - As far as stature, the World League is the richest international competition (i.e. with the most prize money), but the World Championship and the Olympics are more important as far as points gained for ranking purposes. Of course the latter two take place every 4 years, whereas the former is an annual competition, so I guess you can say the World League is the most important because it's an annual competition establishes the relative strength of the teams more frequently than the other two competitions.

Having said that, I would also appreciate some help from the experts. What I don't understand is how a team like Iran (ranked 12) ended up in Pools A/B when higher ranked teams like Germany and particularly Cuba ended up in lower pools? Cuba doesn't even get a crack at the tittle because they're in such a lowly pool.

[Karimi 8]

Well done Iran Shireh

[Ab-Gosht]

O-Zone jaan, I'm no expert on the topic and have some questions of my own, but I'll try to answer some of your questions,

1 - Teams from Pools C/D and E (i.e. Group 2) have a chance to advance to the Group 1 Final, but only one team makes it from those 3 pools to that most important part of the competition which includes 6 teams (Iran being one of them of course via this historic performance in the intercontinental round )

2 - The international competition that would be most similar to the football World Cup is the World Championship. That one is the oldest competition, it takes place on a 4 year cycle, its qualification process is regional and its format is more or less like the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

3 - The World League is a relatively new competition (compared to the World Championship), but it has become a very important one and FIVB is constantly expanding it to promote volleyball.

4 - As far as stature, the World League is the richest international competition (i.e. with the most prize money), but the World Championship and the Olympics are more important as far as points gained for ranking purposes. Of course the latter two take place every 4 years, whereas the former is an annual competition, so I guess you can say the World League is the most important because it's an annual competition establishes the relative strength of the teams more frequently than the other two competitions.

Having said that, I would also appreciate some help from the experts. What I don't understand is how a team like Iran (ranked 12) ended up in Pools A/B when higher ranked teams like Germany and particularly Cuba ended up in lower pools? Cuba doesn't even get a crack at the tittle because they're in such a lowly pool.

I think cuba lost their spot in top groups last year in same competition and iran won another year in the sunlight despite their rankings

[Irannn]

O-Zone jaan, I'm no expert on the topic and have some questions of my own, but I'll try to answer some of your questions,

1 - Teams from Pools C/D and E (i.e. Group 2) have a chance to advance to the Group 1 Final, but only one team makes it from those 3 pools to that most important part of the competition which includes 6 teams (Iran being one of them of course via this historic performance in the intercontinental round )

2 - The international competition that would be most similar to the football World Cup is the World Championship. That one is the oldest competition, it takes place on a 4 year cycle, its qualification process is regional and its format is more or less like the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

3 - The World League is a relatively new competition (compared to the World Championship), but it has become a very important one and FIVB is constantly expanding it to promote volleyball.

4 - As far as stature, the World League is the richest international competition (i.e. with the most prize money), but the World Championship and the Olympics are more important as far as points gained for ranking purposes. Of course the latter two take place every 4 years, whereas the former is an annual competition, so I guess you can say the World League is the most important because it's an annual competition establishes the relative strength of the teams more frequently than the other two competitions.

Having said that, I would also appreciate some help from the experts. What I don't understand is how a team like Iran (ranked 12) ended up in Pools A/B when higher ranked teams like Germany and particularly Cuba ended up in lower pools? Cuba doesn't even get a crack at the tittle because they're in such a lowly pool.

Cuba don't meet FIVB requirements to host the event, so they have to play in 3rd division which is not home and away.
how we are in top division is a mystery ! because even if they wanted to consider last year World League, France was still better than Iran, in fact it was Japan in their initial list (just because of money) but they changed after Japan's poor performance in World Grand Champions Cup at the end of 2013. they replaced Japan with Iran probably to have one Asian team.

and no World League is not the most important competition, it's Olympics and World Championship. WL is still important though.

[persianbruin]

This is Great news:
Brazil beat Italy today which means if Iran wins just one of its remaining 2 games against Poland, they will get the gold medal for their group!!!!

Of course if Italy loses again, then Iran can lose both games and win the gold medal!

[Irannn]

This is Great news:
Brazil beat Italy today which means if Iran wins just one of its remaining 2 games against Poland, they will get the gold medal for their group!!!!
Of course if Italy loses again, then Iran can lose both games and win the gold medal!

actually it was a bad news, Brazil is awake now and if they qualify, they most probably will be in the same group with Iran in final round. and imagine if Russia finishes 2nd in other group, then we will be in the same group with Brazil and Russia. World Rank 1 and 2.

[persianbruin]

So are you saying the third team in the group also advances??? because with one game left Brazil CANNOT finish in the top 2

1 IRI Iran 19 10 6 4 3 2 1 2 2 22 16 1.375 863 818 1.055
2 ITA Italy 19 11 6 5 2 4 1 3 1 23 19 1.211 948 956 0.992
3 BRA Brazil 14 11 5 6 2 1 2 1 3 2 20 23 0.870 980 974 1.006
4 POL Poland 11 10 4 6 1 2 1 3 3 15 22 0.682 826 869 0.9

[Irannn]

So are you saying the third team in the group also advances??? because with one game left Brazil CANNOT finish in the top 2

yes of course, Italy is pre-qualified as host, two teams + Italy qualify from this group.

[Damavand]

We have come such a long way in Volleyball. I remember the 1974 Asian Games where we use to lose to teams like Japan and South Korea, now look at us now, We are beating the best teams in the world.

If we really wanted, we could be performing this good in football also.

[Nader25]

Maybe I am wrong but I guess not many other nations take this world league competition enough seriously, they think to prepare for the other two mostly important competitions; World champioship and the Olympics.

So we should wait to see how our boys are going to achieve when it really matters by the WC and Olympics, when for example Italy, Brazil, Russia, Poland ...will come with full forces?