World League is underway

Sorry for the lull in posting. There’s just not that much going on right now that’s exciting. And sadly, that seems to include World League.

I was big into World League last year. I’m pretty sure I saw each team at least once, and I aggressively followed the progression of the tournament with regards to finals scenarios and the like. This year, it’s just so damn big it’s hard to be excited about it. This was one of my critiques of the women’s World Grand Prix last year, that it had too many teams to really draw the same level of excitement as the World League did last year. Part of that is women’s volleyball being more top-heavy (pardon the pun) at the international level than men’s, but the field itself was just too broad as well. This year’s World League has 8 more teams than last year’s World Grand Prix did.

It’s tough to be excited about teams like Spain, Turkey, and Belgium, which in turn makes it tough to keep too close an eye on the tourney. As it happens, I wish I had, because there are still bound to be some excellent matchups, and one of them happened this weekend. Perennial powerhouses Italy and Brazil played their two-fer this past weekend, and mostly played actual players. With the world championships, in which I’m a lot more interested, looming, I had been wondering if maybe some of the teams with good chances there might not necessarily play their A-team throughout World League. But since it’s still almost three months until the world championships begins, it wouldn’t really make sense to keep them pulled this early. Italy won both matches 3-1 to seize early control of Pool A, but since they’re hosting the Group 1 Final Round, that really doesn’t mean much (they’re in no matter what).

The two-fer in Pool B pitted Bulgaria against the USA, in Bulgaria. The Americans won both, 3-1 and 3-2, to go up 5 points to 1. BYU alumnus Taylor Sander made his major international debut in that series, starting all nine sets on the weekend. USC’s Micah Christenson, who is still a student of course, also saw significant playing time. The Bulgarians played their A-team, with the usual suspects like Todor Aleksiev and Tsvetan Sokolov seeing the floor, so these wins are as ‘legit’ as you could ask for. The Pool C double-shot was Belgium against Australia. I don’t know the first thing about either of those teams. Belgium won 3-0 and 3-1. The other two teams in the pool are Canada and Finland, about whom I’m of course much more aware, so I’ll try to get something written up on their series this coming weekend.

Pool D was the only one in which all four teams were in action in week one. Germany posted a double-win against FIVB favourite sons Japan (seriously, tell me I’m wrong about that), while the Argentina/France series kicked off with the team from Europe winning a five-setter. They play their second match later today, and if the home wifi cooperates I’ll be on the lookout for it.

Pools E and F kick off this week. But on the whole, I’m struggling to muster the same enthusiasm I had last year, and I really do think it’s because of the tournament format. Anything that needs a paragraph and a half to explain but doesn’t have the cachet of ‘world champions’ or ‘Olympic champions’ as its payoff just seems lacking in importance. It’s fair to want to include more than just the very top nations in the world — I guess — but there comes a point where the presence of the Spains and Tunisias and Turkeys of the world drags down the prestige of the name “World League” and even the participating upper-crust teams (obviously, the intent is vice-versa). I hope the tournament is simpler next year, but if I were to guess, this looks like a permanent change.

There are still plenty of nice matchups still to come, and the finals should be great (like the World Grand Prix last year). I’ll do my best to be more on it starting this weekend.