Anyway, the men's tournament of the 2021 Nations League (hereinafter referred to as VNL) will start this weekend! (The women's tournament will start today, May 25th, prior to the men's tournament.)
Volleyball Nations League 2021
So I would like to briefly summarize the tournament once again.
Tournament overview
The VNL is an international tournament established by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) in 2018 to replace the traditional World League. Normally, 16 teams each for men and women travel around the world to play matches, but this year, due to COVID-19 infection prevention measures, both men's and women's tournaments will be held in one bubble in Rimini, Italy.
The preliminary round will be a round-robin format, after which the top four teams will compete in a final round to decide the winner.
This will be the first large-scale international tournament in about two years since the 2019 World Cup.
Tournament Schedule
Qualifying Round: Friday, May 28th - Wednesday, June 23rd
*Five rounds with three matches and three rests
Final Round: Saturday, June 26th and Sunday, June 27th
Participating teams (World rankings, as of 30/05/21)
Brazil (1), Poland (2), USA (3), Russia (4), France (5), Japan (6), Argentina (7), Iran (8), Canada (9), Serbia (10), Italy (11), Slovenia (12), Bulgaria (14), Germany (15), Netherlands (18), Australia (21)
Japan national team match schedule
The match schedule for the Japanese men's national team is as follows (times are Japan time):
May
28th (Fri) 20:00～ Iran
29th (Sat) 20:00～ Netherlands
30th (Sun) 22:00～ Russia
June
3rd Thursday 20:00～ Serbia
4th (Fri) 20:00～ Brazil
5th (Sat) 20:00～ France
9th Wednesday 19:00～ Australia
11th (Fri) 02:30～ Italy
11th (Fri) 20:00~ Argentina
15th (Tue) 22:00～ Germany
16th (Wed) 22:00～ Poland
17th (Thurs) 20:00～ Canada
21st Monday 19:00～ Bulgaria
22nd (Tue) 23:00～ Slovenia
23rd Wednesday 20:00～ America
All matches except for the match against Italy will be played at times that make it easy to watch from Japan!
How to watch
TV Broadcast
All Japan matches will be broadcast on BS-TBS. Some will also be broadcast on the terrestrial channel TBS.
For more information, please see the link below.
FIVB Volleyball Nations League 2021 Media Information
The match against Poland on June 16th will be broadcast live, but all other matches will be recorded.
Online distribution
All games are broadcast live on Volleyball TV (archives are also available). To watch, you will need a Volleyball TV account and viewing license. You can create an account and purchase a license on the following website.
https://www.volleyballworld.tv/home (English only)
There are three types of passes: 1-day pass, 1-week pass, and all-access pass, but if you plan to watch for more than 2 weeks, I recommend the all-access pass. Right now, with the coupon code "VNL30", you can purchase the all-access pass for only $14.00 (about 1,500 yen) instead of the usual $19.99. Of course, I bought it with this. Also, it seems that you can watch it on your smartphone or tablet using the app!
Please refer to the article below for information on how to watch the online broadcast!
*Update on May 31st: The above coupon code no longer appears to be valid.
Tournament outlook
The results of the last tournament in 2019 were Russia as the winner, the United States as the second, and Poland as the third. However, this was two years ago, and it is very difficult to predict the winner as the competition has been dominated by many strong contenders for the past 10 years. Personally, I think that five teams will be involved in the battle for the championship, including the three countries mentioned above, as well as Brazil and France, who are ranked number one in the world. Ideally, I would like to add the local team Italy to this list, but this tournament they have been conserving their main players and have been focusing on young players, so it seems that this will be difficult.
Of course, I personally support Poland (laughs).
As for Japan, it will be very tough to make it to the finals. Looking at the rankings, they are somehow ranked high among the participating countries, but even winning may be tough. If they can win against opponents of equal or lower ranks, as they did in the World Cup two years ago, and then put up a good fight against opponents of higher rank, a miracle may happen. I'm also looking forward to seeing new players such as Takahashi Ai and Otsuka do well! I hope they will go all out for Yanagida!
summary
This tournament is the first major international tournament in two years that volleyball fans have been waiting for, and it is also a prelude to the Tokyo Olympics. It is a chance to see not only the Japanese national team, but also the world's top teams compete against each other for the first time in two years! (Also, to be honest, we don't know what will happen with the Tokyo Olympics, so this may be the first and last FIVB tournament of 2021... (^^;)
Either way, you won't want to miss any of the matches!
BE PART OF THE GAME!!
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