2015 FIVB Club World Championship - Brazil - 10/27

    Teams already qualified:


    * Sada Cruzeiro BRA
    * UPCN San Juan Voley ARG
    * Matin Varamin IRN
    * Capitanes de Arecibo PUE
    * Al Alhy Club EGY

    Quote from Bartek

    Teams already qualified:


    * Sada Cruzeiro BRA
    * UPCN San Juan Voley ARG
    * Matin Varamin IRN
    * Capitanes de Arecibo PUE
    * Al Alhy Club EGY



    * Zenit Kazan RUS

    2 Wild Cards- I think 2 of the Teams- Rzeszow, Belgorod, Team from Qatar.

    I don't know why Matin Varamin from Iran is listed here. Taichung Bank from Chinese Taipei should be representing Asia. The 2 wild cards might go to Europe and Al-Arabi Doha.

    No wild cards in the end. The decision has been announced by FIVB. 6 teams will participate in Belo Horizonte.


    Sada Cruzeiro (BRA) - South American champion and host
    UPCN San Juan (ARG) - South American runner-up
    Arecibo Capitanes (PUR) - NORCECA
    Zenit Kazan (RUS) - CEV Champions League winner
    Al-Ahly (EGY) - African champion
    Paykan Tehran (IRI) - nominated to represent Asia (based on what criteria?)


    Zenit, Sada Cruzeiro and UPCN are clearly the favourites for the medals. But it also depends on what squad the Iranians will send to Brazil.

    Quote from YavorD

    Paykan Tehran (IRI) - nominated to represent Asia (based on what criteria?)

    I had the same question, previously world club championship was to be held sooner than asian club championship, so they made the decision to send 2014 champion from asia which was Matin Varamin, but Matin dissolved and I thought they had decided to give its place to another Iranian team, but then I read somewhere the decision had been canceled because of time change of world club CH, and people in asian confederation just decided to send stronger Paykan instead of Taichung Bank and Al Arabi Qatar, I dont know which interpretation is correct.


    Quote from YavorD

    Zenit, Sada Cruzeiro and UPCN are clearly the favourites for the medals. But it also depends on what squad the Iranians will send to Brazil.

    Paykan notable players for coming season are these (that will attend club CH as well): Mirzajanpour, Ghaemi, Marandi (current NT libero), Faezi, Vermiglio and Nikolov. they need an OP, they had signed with Oivanen (FIN), but because number of foreigners is limited in Iran league now they want to cancel it (and Oivanen wants to complain), but for club CH they may get some enforcement from other clubs.

    Paykan:


    setter: Vermiglio, Salafzoon
    OH: Ghaemi, Mirzajanpour, Manavinejad, Hosseini pouya
    MB: Faezi, Masoud Gholami, Nikolov
    Op: Ghafour, Safaie
    Libero: Marandi


    I would be thankful for other rosters.

    Does FIVB have youtube live or Laola1 live at all?

    UPCN:


    S: Axel Jacobsen, Sebastián Brajkovic
    OP: Nikolay Uchikov, Santiago Alvarez
    OH: Javier Filardi, Todor Aleksiev, Nicolás Lazo, Mariano Vildosola
    MB: Martin Ramos, Petar Krsmanovic, Pablo Guzmán, Gustavo Molina
    L: Sebastian Garrocq, Matias Salvo


    I don't know if this is the final squad or you have to cut 2. These are just the guys who played friendly with Minas yesterday (won 3-1).

    So Nikolay Nikolov seems to be fit and ready to play for Paykan. Which means he was really just a back-up call in case something happened to either Yosifov or Todorov. And obviously the Club World Championship has a higher priority than the European Championship...


    The semifinal contenders were more or less clear before the tournament started. On one side, it is good because the number of games and days has been reduced and now we can focus on the two big games in each group and then the finals. On the other side, however, adding another European team and making the total number of participants 8 could've made the group phase more interesting.


    I very curious to see the Argentinian team, although they would certainly need time to practice things together. I couldn't watch Cruzeiro's match against Capitanes, but from what I checked today it seems like Jose Miguel Caceres played as a MB. And even when Ezequiel Cruz didn't perform well as an opposite. But they can't complain from a lack of opposites, can they?

    Can anyone find the live stream for today's games please?

    Thoughts on the final today?


    I am quite torn. On the one hand, Zenit, on paper is a significantly more talented team, featuring one of (if not) the best players in the world in Leon, and other really highly quality guys like Anderson and Mikhaylov. I have to add that I was not all that impressed by Zenit's performance yesterday against a mediocre UPCN team.


    On the other hand, Sada Cruzeiro does not have the star power that Zenit does, but features high quality players like Wallace, Isac, and Leal. On top of this, they are playing at home in front of their home crowd, and looked fantastic yesterday against an above average Iranian team!


    Do you go with the star power or the more cohesive unit playing in front of their own boisterous audience. I'm leaning towards the latter especially because I am looking to bet the game and odds on Sada are mouth-watering!


    Would love to hear others insights and predictions!

    Cruzeiro will need a better Wallace today if they want to win this game. He did not play the WL finals, and after his surgery i think this is his first competition in high level. If he can play like in last years i think Cruzeiro will have more chances.


    Willian is a great setter, but he was not precise at all in the first game against Zenit. I hope he can play better
    today. I really like the way Cruzeiro plays. They are a fun team. Felipe is another problem, he is not tall and he has some difficult to play against tall teams. Winters will have some chances to play today and i hope he can help the team, especially in attack.


    Cruzeiro will need to server really well with few mistakes.


    I did not like the first game between Cruzeiro and Zenit, imo both teams committed to many mistakes. I hope this final will be a better game to watch. :drink:


    Sada wont have any chances against Zenit, because they are too dependent on their middles which is hard to use this tactic against a super strongly serving team like zenit, and about last day's match, Sada played good but paykan was terrible, otherwise they couldnt finish it that easy.

    Quote from scarpetta

    Brazilian sources claim Paykan's opposite Reza Safaei is excluded from the tournament because of alleged sexual harassment in hotel room :white: :thumbdown:

    Embarrassing if this is real, if Brazilian friends here remember we had a same case about a member of Iran embassy in Brazil some years ago. :thumbdown: