Slovakia Shows No Letdown With New Coach (Group 2, Week 2 Preview)

2017 FIVB WORLD LEAGUE – Group 2 Preview

• June 9-11, 2017
• Azadi Indoor Stadium, Tehran, Iran
• Iran Daylight Time (UTC+04:30)
• Live results
• Week 1 individual stats leaders

Schedule

Pool D2

• Venue: Finland Hartwall Arena, Helsinki, Finland
• All times are Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+03:00)

Pool E2

• Venue:  Takasaki Arena, Takasaki, Japan
• All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+09:00)

Pool F2

• Venue: Budvar Arena, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
• All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00)

Ranking:

		Matches		Pts	Sets			Points
Rank	Team	W	L		W	L	Ratio	W	L	Ratio
1	Slovakia	3	0	9	9	1	9.000	253	224	1.129
2	Slovenia	3	0	9	9	3	3.000	293	261	1.123
3	Turkey	3	0	7	9	4	2.250	299	266	1.124
4	China	2	1	7	8	4	2.000	282	267	1.056
5	South Korea	2	1	4	7	7	1.000	308	305	1.010
6	Netherlands	1	2	4	6	6	1.000	280	281	0.996
7	Czech Republic	1	2	4	6	7	0.857	281	296	0.949
8	Japan	1	2	4	5	7	0.714	261	269	0.970
9	Portugal	1	2	3	5	8	0.625	274	292	0.938
10	Australia	1	2	2	5	8	0.625	296	299	0.990
11	Finland	0	3	1	4	9	0.444	279	299	0.933
12	Egypt	0	3	0	0	9	0.000	180	227	0.793

Preview:

The first weekend of play for Slovakia saw no signs that they’d hired, and fired, a new coach just days before the start of the tournament. The team rolled through their hosted pool, sweeping Japan and Portugal and beating Australia 3-1 in Poprad to score maximum points.

This week, they’ll travel to Helsinki, Finland to play China, Australia (again), and Finland in a group with high aspirations, but overall meager results, in the first round. The Chinese performed well, thanks to an offensive explosion by Chuan Jiang, who had 65 points in just 12 sets played. That was the most points-per-set of any player in Group 2, and the 2nd-most total points in the opening weekend.

Finland, meanwhile, was surprisingly-winless in the opening weekend, losing to Slovenia (the other team to finish the opening round 3-0), South Korea, and Czech Republic, and managing only a single point thanks to a 5-setter with the Korean side.

Finland was coming off a successful campaign to qualify for the World Championships, and while their block remained strong (they had 12, 12, and 13 in their 3 games), their offense faltered. That included a Saturday game where they got a dose of their own medicine from the Czechs, who had 19 blocks – including 7 from Ales Holubec alone. In that match, Finland only scored on 36.97% of their attacks, and with 44 kills and 29 errors, had just a .126 efficiency percentage offensively.

The aforementioned Slovenians, meanwhile, will remain in the far east where Japan will play host to E2 (Slovenia was in South Korea in the opening round). They’ll play in a group with Japan, South Korea, and Turkey.

Key Group 2, Week 2 Matches:

• China v. Slovakia (D2), Saturday, June 10th, 11:00 UTC
• Slovenia v. Turkey (E2), Sunday, June 11th, 8:40 UTC
• Netherlands v. Czech Republic (F2), Saturday, June 10th, 17:10 UTC