The 2010 FIVB Men's Volleyball World Championship was held in Italy from 25 September to 10 October 2010. The tournament featured 24 teams to determine the world champions in men's volleyball. In addition to 2006 champion Brazil and host nation Italy, 22 teams qualified for the tournament by means of continental and regional competitions. The matches took place in ten venues across ten Italian cities, with the final being held at the PalaLottomatica, Rome.
The tournament was won by Brazil, who beat Cuba in final. Brazil won their third straight world championship having won previously in 2002 and 2006.[1] The podium was completed by Serbia who defeated Italy in the 3rd place match. Brazilian wing-spiker Murilo Endres was named the tournament MVP.[2]
Brazil's victory continued their eight-year period of domination of world volleyball. Brazil has now won 15 of 17 major competitions since 2002. Brazil's third straight world championship equals the record for consecutive titles set by Italy in the 1990s.
Host
Finals hosts Italy. The tournament was held in ten Italy cities.
The regional qualification stage determined the 24 teams that would compete in the championship competition. Two spots were guaranteed to the host country Italy and 2006 championsBrazil. Regional governing bodies were allocated the remaining 22 spots. Africa was granted three, Asia and Oceania four, Europe eight, North America five and South America two places. Qualification competitions took place ranging from January to August 2009.
Teams were seeded in the first two positions of each pool following the serpentine system according to their FIVB World Ranking as of 28 July 2009.[3] FIVB reserved the right to seed the hosts as head of pool A regardless of the World Ranking. All teams not seeded were drawn to take other available positions in the remaining lines, following the World Ranking. The draw was held in Rome, Italy on 28 October 2009. Rankings are shown in brackets except the hosts who ranked 6th.
In the first round pool competitions, each pool played a round-robin schedule, with each team playing every other team. The top three teams advanced to the second round.
Pool A
Pool A featured host country Italy, as well as Egypt, Japan and Iran. Italy defeated all three teams, while the remaining teams each finished with a 1–2 record. Iran were eliminated by virtue of scoring the fewest points during the three-game schedule.
Pool B featured reigning champions Brazil, as well as Cuba, Spain and Tunisia. Cuba won all three of their matches. Tunisia were defeated in every match and eliminated from the competition. Brazil and Cuba would face each other again in the tournament final, where Brazil would repeat as world champions.
In the second round, participants were divided into six pools of three teams, pools G–N, with each pool again playing a round-robin. The bottom team were eliminated from the competition, while the top two advanced to the third round.
Pool G
Pool G featured host Italy, as well as Germany and Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico were eliminated after losing both matches.
In the third round, the twelve remaining teams were divided into four pools of three. No eliminations took place in the third round. The top finishers in each pool were seeded into the championship bracket for first to fourth place. The second finishers competed in a bracket to determine fifth to eighth place, while the bottom teams competed in a bracket to determine ninth through twelfth place.
Pool O
In pool O, Italy moved on to the semifinal match, the USA advanced to the fifth to eighth bracket and France moved on to the ninth to twelfth place competition.
In the bronze medal match, Serbia defeated hosts Italy, three sets to one. It was the country's first medal since they were runners-up in 1998 (then as Yugoslavia).[4]
The final was a rematch of Brazil and Cuba, who had met earlier in the first round with Cuba winning 3 sets to 2 in an upset. The final was a different story however, with Brazil winning easily in straight sets 25–22, 25–14, 25–22;[5] one Xinhua journalist called it a 'practice match' for Brazil.[6] Brazil took advantage of a large number of Cuban mistakes, perhaps resulting from the young age of the Cuban team. Leandro Vissotto led Brazil in points with 19 and closed the match with a spike. The match was played before a crowd of 11,605 which included a number of Brazilian football stars based in Italy.[7]
Volly was the name chosen by Internet users and students of the 10 host cities of the World Championship (Ancona, Catania, Florence, Milan, Modena, Reggio Calabria, Rome, Turin, Trieste and Verona), after months of voting. The second most popular name for the mascot was "Fly," while "Mimmo," "Italo" and "Gump" finished further down the list.
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