The 2022 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League was the fourth edition of the FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League, an annual men's international volleyball tournament. The competition was held from 7 June to 24 July 2022, and the final round took place in Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy.
Australia were the last placed challenger team after the preliminary round and would therefore be replaced by the 2022 Challenger Cup winners Cuba in the 2023 edition.
France won their first VNL title after defeating the United States in a five-set final. It was the United States' second silver medal in the tournament. Poland won their second bronze medal by defeating the host Italy in straight sets in the third-place match. Earvin N'Gapeth from France was named the MVP of the tournament.
Teams Qualification As there was no promotion or relegation in the 2021 VNL, was scheduled for the same 16 teams in 2021 are to compete in this year's edition.
On 1 March 2022, FIVB declared Russia and Belarus not eligible for international and continental competitions due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Russia was expelled from the competition. On April 29, FIVB announced that China will replaces Russia for the competition.
CountryConfederationDesignationPrevious appearancesPrevious best performanceTotalFirstLastCSVCore team3201820217th place (2019)AVCChallenger team32018202113th place (2018, 2019)CSVCore team320182021Champions (2021)CEVChallenger team32018202111th place (2018)NORCECAChallenger team3201820217th place (2018)AVCChallenger team22018201915th place (2018)CEVCore team320182021Runners-up (2018)CEVCore team3201820219th place (2018)AVCCore team3201820215th place (2019)CEVCore team3201820218th place (2018, 2019)AVCCore team32018202110th place (2019)CEVChallenger team12021202115th place (2021)CEVCore team320182021Runners-up (2021)CEVCore team3201820215th place (2018)CEVChallenger team1202120214th place (2021)NORCECACore team320182021Runners-up (2019)
Squads
Format Preliminary round In the 2022 tournament, the format of play was changed. The new format will see 16 men's teams competing in pools of 8 teams during the pool phase. Each team plays 12 matches during the pool stage. Eight teams will then move into the final knockout phase of the competition.
Final round The VNL Finals will see the seven strongest teams along with the finals host country Italy moving directly to the knockout phase which will consist of eight matches in total: four quarterfinals, two semi-finals and the bronze and gold medal matches.
Final 8 direct elimination formula:
The 1st ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the 8th ranked team, the 2nd ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the 7th ranked team, the 3rd ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the 6th ranked team, the 4th ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the 5th ranked team. The Host Team is placed in 1st position if the team is among the top 8 teams in the Final Standings after the VNL Preliminary Phase. The Host Team is placed in 8th position if the team is not among the top 8 teams in the Final Standings after the VNL Preliminary Phase.
Rule changes Court switch at the end of the sets to be eliminated due to COVID-19 safety guidelines and for a better television broadcasts. Each team is allowed to call only one time-out during each set in the preliminary. The time-out lasts 30 seconds long. Only one technical time-out is made when the leading team reaches 12 points. Two time-outs per set are given to all matches in the Finals, one of them can only be called before technical time-out. Live interview is introduced into matches during Set 2 and Set 3 in the Finals. Therefore, the breaks between Set 2 and Set 3 will extend to 5 minutes.
Pool composition The overview of pools was released on 7 December 2021.
Week 1Week 2Week 3Pool 1BrazilPool 2CanadaPool 3PhilippinesPool 4BulgariaPool 5JapanPool 6Poland
Venues Preliminary round Week 1Pool 1Pool 2Brasília, BrazilOttawa, CanadaNilson Nelson GymnasiumTD Place ArenaCapacity: 11,105Capacity: 9,500Week 2Pool 3Pool 4Quezon City, PhilippinesSofia, BulgariaAraneta ColiseumArmeets ArenaCapacity: 16,035Capacity: 15,373Week 3Pool 5Pool 6Osaka, JapanGdańsk, PolandMaruzen Intec ArenaErgo ArenaCapacity: 10,000Capacity: 11,409
Final round All matchesCasalecchio di Reno, ItalyUnipol ArenaCapacity: 11,000
Competition schedule ●Preliminary round●Final round
Week 1Jun 7–12Week 2Jun 21–26Week 3Jul 5–10Week 4Jul 20–2432 matches32 matches32 matches8 matches
Pool standing procedure Total number of victories (matches won, matches lost) In the event of a tie, the following first tiebreaker will apply: The teams will be ranked by the most points gained per match as follows: Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 points for the winner, 0 points for the loser Match won 3–2: 2 points for the winner, 1 point for the loser Match forfeited: 3 points for the winner, 0 points (0–25, 0–25, 0–25) for the loser If teams are still tied after examining the number of victories and points gained, then the FIVB will examine the results in order to break the tie in the following order: Sets quotient: if two or more teams are tied on the number of points gained, they will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of the number of all sets won by the number of all sets lost. Points quotient: if the tie persists based on the sets quotient, the teams will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of all points scored by the total of points lost during all sets. If the tie persists based on the points quotient, the tie will be broken based on the team that won the match of the Round Robin Phase between the tied teams. When the tie in points quotient is between three or more teams, these teams ranked taking into consideration only the matches involving the teams in question.
Preliminary round Ranking
Week 1
Pool 1 All times are Brasília time (UTC−03:00).
Pool 2 All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−04:00).
Week 2
Pool 3 All times are Philippine Standard Time (UTC+08:00).
Pool 4 All times are Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+03:00).
Week 3
Pool 5 All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+09:00).
Pool 6 All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).
Final round All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Third place match
Final
Final standing
RankTeam45678910111213141516
14–man rosterBarthélémy Chinenyeze, Jenia Grebennikov, Jean Patry, Benjamin Toniutti (c), Earvin N'Gapeth, Antoine Brizard, Stéphen Boyer, Nicolas Le Goff, Médéric Henry, Trévor Clévenot, Yacine Louati, Benjamin Diez, Pierre Derouillon, Quentin JouffroyHead coach Andrea Giani
Awards
Most valuable player
Best setter
Best outside spikers
Best middle blockers
Best opposite spiker
Best libero
Fair play award
Statistics leaders
Preliminary round Statistics leaders correct at the end of preliminary round.
Best ScorersPlayerAttacksBlocksServesTotal1 Nimir Abdel-Aziz19110302312 Amin Esmaeilnezhad16911131933 Yuji Nishida15610271934 Aleksandar Nikolov1501391725 Yūki Ishikawa1221329164
Best AttackersPlayerSpikesFaultsShots1 Nimir Abdel-Aziz1915312551.763692 Amin Esmaeilnezhad169479654.173123 Yuji Nishida156477057.142734 Aleksandar Nikolov150439751.722905 Jingyin Zhang140497353.44262
Best BlockersPlayerFaultsRebounds1 Svetoslav Gotsev3538192.92922 Flávio Gualberto2738562.251213 Agustín Loser2670532.171494 David Smith2431442.00995 Jan Kozamernik2236301.8388
Best ServersPlayerAcesFaultsHits1 Nimir Abdel-Aziz3055792.501642 Yūki Ishikawa2941972.421673 Yuji Nishida2749722.251484 Aaron Russell21311011.751535 Mateusz Bieniek1622752.00113
Best SettersPlayerFaults1 Georgi Seganov301858725.088962 Bruno Rezende299545024.927543 Simone Giannelli269357722.428494 Joshua Tuaniga257134521.426035 Matías Sánchez252031921.00571
Best DiggersPlayerDigsFaultsReceptions1 Santiago Danani11752249.751932 Tomohiro Yamamoto10122208.421433 Julian Zenger10034399.091734 Benjamin Diez9017168.181235 Robbert Andringa7229106.00111
Best ReceiversPlayerExcellentsFaults1 Santiago Danani871011640.852132 Lorenzo Pope752313632.052343 Julian Zenger741512334.912124 Tomohiro Yamamoto6998741.821655 Yūki Ishikawa67811235.83187
Final round Statistics leaders correct at the end of final round.
Best ScorersPlayerAttacksBlocksServesTotal1 Jean Patry4723522 Aaron Russell4300433 Torey DeFalco3517434 Bartosz Kurek3315395 Earvin N'Gapeth311436
Best AttackersPlayerSpikesFaultsShots1 Jean Patry4772361.04772 Aaron Russell43102257.33753 Torey DeFalco35122151.47684 Bartosz Kurek33113342.86775 Earvin N'Gapeth3171855.3656
Best BlockersPlayerFaultsRebounds1 David Smith816192.67432 Jeffrey Jendryk621132.00403 Nicolas Le Goff61262.00244 Barthélémy Chinenyeze5661.67175 Micah Christenson4641.3314
Best ServersPlayerAcesFaultsHits1 Torey DeFalco79382.33542 Antoine Brizard77312.33453 Jakub Kochanowski68262.00404 Bartosz Kurek513201.67385 Mateusz Bieniek57281.6740
Best SettersPlayerFaults1 Micah Christenson72117824.002512 Antoine Brizard47114715.671953 Simone Giannelli39116513.002054 Marcin Janusz38116712.672065 Bruno Rezende2906329.0092
Best DiggersPlayerDigsFaultsReceptions1 Fabio Balaso356311.67442 Aaron Russell251128.33383 Erik Shoji23927.67344 Jenia Grebennikov21447.00295 Paweł Zatorski21917.0031
Best ReceiversPlayerExcellentsFaults1 Trevor Clevenot3213348.48662 Erik Shoji2342941.07563 Aaron Russell2044628.57704 Kamil Semeniuk2013039.22513 Earvin N'Gapeth1923037.2551
Controversies at the Finals Athletes and organizations complained about the organization of the Finals including poor facilities of training halls, transportation arrangements and meals arrangement. FIVB later apologized for the incidents and arranged a meeting with national teams' captains.
See also 2022 FIVB Volleyball Men's Challenger Cup 2022 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship
Notes A.China forfeited the match on 22 June giving France a 3–0 win due to medical circumstances related to COVID-19. B.Germany forfeited the match on 23 June giving China a 3–0 win because they refused to play against China even though the Chinese athletes were cleared by local authorities after testing positive for COVID-19.
References
External links