Volleyball: FIVB Men’s World Championship |19 February 2014

Seychelles men’s team to emulate Egypt and Cameroon

Seychelles will vie for the last 2014 FIVB Men’s World Championship ticket when they play in the pool Y African qualifiers next month in Tunisia.

To qualify for the premier FIVB men’s volleyball event in Poland from August 30 to September 21, the Seychelles team have to finish at the top of the standings in pool Y which also comprises Tunisia, Congo, Senegal and Nigeria.

The qualifiers in Tunisia will be played from March 2-8 and if the Seychelles team do qualify, they will join Egypt and Cameroon as the African representatives at the most prestigious event in international volleyball.

Egypt qualified for the FIVB World Championship by winning all their four matches in pool U qualifiers at the Safaricom Indoor Arena in Nairobi, beating Kenya 3-1 (25-21, 25-22, 20-25, 25-20), Zambia 3-0 (25-13, 25-15, 25-15), Botswana 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-9) and Cape Verde 3-0 (25-14, 25-14, 25-16).

This is the fifth time in a row Egypt have qualified for the prestigious FIVB event and the eighth in total after 1974, 1978, 1986, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010.  

Egypt captain Saleh Youssef said: “The tournament was favourable on our side and we expected to qualify for the World Championship.”

As for Cameroon, they booked their ticket to the World Championship by winning pool T of the African qualifiers which the country hosted at the Palais des Sports in Yaoundé.

The Cameroonians finished the five-nation round-robin tournament with a win-loss ratio of 3-1 for nine points – the same win-loss ratio and total points as Algeria and Rwanda. But they were declared the winners by set quotient – 10-4 ahead of Algeria who came second with a 9-4 quotient and Rwanda who came third with a quotient of 9-6.

This is Cameroon’s third qualification ticket to the World Championship after 1990 and 2010. They achieved their best result in 2010 when they finished 13th after getting through the first round.

G. G.