Just a few hours ago, Iran won the second leg of their two-leg World League qualifier against Japan. Neither leg was at all competitive, with the Iranians sweeping both (25-19, 25-14, 25-23) the first night and (25-16, 25-17, 25-21) the second. They join the Netherlands as the second qualifier team for next year's World League. Here's the full list of teams:
1. Poland (2012 champions)
2. USA (2012 runners-up)
3. Cuba
4. Bulgaria
5. Germany
6. Brazil
7. France
8. Russia
9. Serbia
10. Argentina
11. Italy
12. Canada
13. Finland
14. South Korea
15. Netherlands
16. Iran
It's pointless to speculate about pool composition, since it's not really based on anything (I checked the 2011 results to see if they related in any way to the pool composition of this year's tournament, and they didn't) and there may be changes to the group stage next year anyway. There's been talk of having two pools of eight rather than four pools of four. We'll see if that comes to pass.
One of those 16 teams will be the host nation and will be guaranteed to make it to the finals. Last year it was Bulgaria. Under the four pools of four system, the four pool winners, the host nation, and the best runner-up qualify for the finals, and if the host nation is one of the pool winners, the two best runners-up qualify. As it happened, Bulgaria was second in their pool, meaning they did need to rely on the host-nation bid, but it wasn't a complete aberration that they were there. Those six teams play another round-robin pool, with the top four playing off for the medals (fifth and sixth play a classification match).
I'm very excited for next year's World League tournament, and look forward to directly covering as much of it as possible.
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