VolleyRuller96

Why? If they win the group, Italy will play Spain, the 4-th placed team in Pool D. Meanwhile, if we would win this match 3-0 or 3-1 we would also win the group, and Italy would take 2nd place and have to play against Slovakia. Which is at least as good as Spain and will also have the entire stadium supporting them during their eightfinal, so TBH I don`t think there would be many benefits in giving this match up. Not that it would happen, since Italy won the next 2 sets

2 more eightfinal matches confirmed: vs in Ankara vs in Ankara

What have they done in set 1, that's crazy Who would suspect we will start the match against by winning a set 25-14 ! ?

Another Eightfinal pair: vs will play in Budapest

Anyway... 14-25/9-25/12-25, these kind of results you don't see very often I feel bad for the Slovak girls, they will probably deep down feel really humiliated with such result, especially since they played such good tournament so far. I hope the fans will continue to support them, they will really need that right now... well, sometimes such matches simply happen . They will most likely play in the eightfinals, which is actually a really decent opponent for them. will probably take the 2nd place in group B, but that group is easily the weakest and least balanced one in these championship, the giant point difference between 3rd and 4th placed team proves it. They also play very irreguraly, and were the only team from this group that struggled against Portugal. I think that game will be one of the more interesting eightfinals since I'm sure will try their best to bounce back from what happened today. I'm not saying they'll qualify, but they have definitely a bigger chance than against , which was sort of the expected opponent for them

I think there was a rule in the official competition book that said the host countries can't play with each other in the eightfinals, and the draw would be adjusted if that was supposed to happen but I may be mistaken It would be strange indeed if Slovakia was forced to play in Łodź, Poland in Bratislava or Turkey in Budapest.

Oh no, has really a horrible day I haven't seen such low points per set for a long time...

I checked again, and on paper is not yet officially out, however would have to win 3-0 or 3-1 over and has to win 3-0 or 3-1 over . If Romania scores a set, only a 3-0 win will let Hungary participate in the next round. Still a very unlikely scenario, but well, miracles happen Currently, leads 1-0 in sets.

We now know 2 eightfinal pairs: vs will play in Budapest vs will play in Łódź.

Big congratulations to for securing a place in the semifinals They now have the chance to be the 1st African team ever to play the final match of U-19 World Championships, although the next game will be against so the task will be extremely tough. Also wow, barely won 3-2 over in the 9-16th place quarterfinals

Well, if they wasted 4 match points, I have no hope for our girls in the match against .The only good side was that there FINALLY was a decent ammount of supporters at the match... ca 7.000 people, so of course still waaay less than at our male NT matches (when our boys play in this stadium, there's usually over 10.000 spectators even at Nations League matches ) but still a giant improvement after only 4.500 people watched the game with . also, sadly it is now confirmed will be the only host country that doesn't play the play-off round. They fought well against Croatia, but in the end lost the 3rd set 33-35 and thus lost all chances of qualifying.

I didn`t expect Brazil to finish the tournament so early, and neither did I expect a QF between Belarus and Egypt. Knockout system is way more interesting, it`s a shame FIVB uses that stupid system with 3 group stage in senior WCH nowadays.

Well, is now pretty much already a winner of their group, who would have predicted that

Congrats Slovakia, I think at least 3rd place in the group is very possible now. Poland survived against Ukraine, but it was a very chalenging match and we really need to improve soon.

Well, at least we have the first interesting match in group B

Germany 3-2 Russia And of course I said today that they don`t play anythibg great, way to make a fool of myself

So I accidentaly stumbled upon a article on Water Polo recently, and it turns out things aren't that bad, we still have an registered male National Team (at least we used to in 2018) For financial reasons they don't play that many matches, but I even managed to find current squad: http://www.pilkawodna.waw.pl/kol.htm

It's day 4 of group stage, so we are halfway through, and this is how the group tables look like now. Overall, the competition is way more balanced than I thought, with the exception of Pool B where the difference of level between teams is as big as I thought it would be in the whole tournament. Many teams unexpectingly show really good level, what can do in defence and especially serving is incredible Until now, only 3 teams haven't won even a set: , and , although Switzerland was very close to achieving it in yesterday's match against Russia, as they lost the first set 26-28. is also the only team that honestly feels like it doesn't belong here. Yesteday, we got another surprise as beat 3-1 and still can fight for a place in eightfinals, and today I believe we can expects more surprising results. If they continue playing like they do, should have no problem beating , which on paper is a better team but plays horrible tournament so far. (I wouldn't be surprised if they play good match against later this week, too, showed the Germans aren't untouchable.) at the other hand will play a rather difficult game against , however the Azerbaijan team doesn't show any brilliance this year, and Hungary have a bit better match history. They will also have home advantage, so nothiong's impossible.

We now know that the 3 remaining qualifiers are and Final Group Standings: Pool A) Pool B) Pool C) Pool D) So, and will form one more group and fight for 17th-20th places. Meanwhile, eightfinals are as follows: vs vs vs vs vs vs vs vs Personally, I'm surprised that only 6 of theste 16 teams are European. Also, either or and or are going to play quarterfinals

Very close to another big surprise leads 2-0 against

Bulgaria destroyed Serbia in set 1

There are some daily highlists for day 1 & 2 if someone is interested