June 12, 2018
By: ROTM
In FIVB Volleyball Nations League (VNL) on the men’s side we’ve got 2 more weeks of Pool Play competition. It is a a tight race with Poland and Brazil leading the way with 23 point race with Poland narrowly leading due to Sets and Points Ratios. In third place you’ve got a HOT French team who is capable of upsetting any team with 22 points. In fourth place is the USA with 20 points. In striking distance in making the Final Six are Italy and Canada. Serbia needs come out of this coming weekend to hold on to that sixth spot.
Team USA was shocked by German last weekend in Ottawa, Canada– as with LOTS of volleyball fans, but the Germans were “grippin’ and rippin'” from the service line creating so many out-of-system plays for the Americans. Even Head Coach John Speraw is quoted as saying, “This is the worst performance I’ve seen of my team in the last 5-6 years.” The USA bounced back with 2 solid wins against Australia and host, Canada to recover the weekend.
This weekend at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, a suburb of Chicago, the USA is looking to rebound with matches against Serbia, Poland and Iran. One would think it would be a series of home matches for the USA– unfortunately, with a large Polish and Serb population in the area there will only be one “home” match for Team USA– vs. Iran– on Sunday. I’ll be MC/Host for the SIX matches that will be streamed live in the USA on FloVolleyball.TV (or you can go to the FIVB VNL site for the international broadcasts).
I’m excited to be out in Chicago again– that’s for sure! Portillo’s here I come!