The 2023 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League was the fifth edition of the FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League, an annual men's international volleyball tournament. The competition was held from 6 June to 23 July 2023, with the final round taking place at the Ergo Arena, Gdańsk, Poland.
Following the results of 2022 Nations League and 2022 Challenger Cup, Australia were replaced by debutants Cuba in this edition.
Finals host and home team Poland won their first VNL title after defeating the United States in four sets. It was the United States' third silver medal. Japan defeated Italy in a tie-breaker match and claimed the bronze medal. Paweł Zatorski from Poland was named the MVP of the tournament.
Teams Qualification Sixteen teams qualified for the competition. Ten of them qualified as core teams which cannot face relegation. Other six teams were selected as challenger teams which could be relegated from the tournament. Cuba replaced Australia after winning the 2022 Challenger Cup.
CountryConfederationDesignationPrevious appearancesPrevious best performanceTotalFirstLastCSVCore team4201820227th place (2019)CSVCore team420182022Champions (2021)CEVChallenger team42018202211th place (2018)NORCECAChallenger team4201820227th place (2018)AVCChallenger team32018202213th place (2022)NORCECAChallenger team0NoneDebutCEVCore team420182022Champions (2022)CEVCore team4201820229th place (2018)AVCCore team4201820225th place (2019)CEVCore team4201820224th place (2022)AVCCore team4201820225th place (2022)CEVChallenger team2202120228th place (2022)CEVCore team420182022Runners-up (2021)CEVCore team4201820225th place (2018)CEVChallenger team2202120224th place (2021)NORCECACore team420182022Runners-up (2019, 2022)
Squads
Format Preliminary round The format of play is the same as edition 2022. 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 top eight teams 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 first ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the eighth ranked team, the second ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the seventh ranked team, the third ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the sixth ranked team, the fourth ranked team will play a quarterfinal match against the fifth ranked team. The national team of the hosting territory of the event will have a guaranteed berth for the Final round. If the host nation does not finish in the top eight in Preliminary round, they will replace the eighth place team and play as the eighth seed.
Pool composition The overview of pools was released on 11 November 2022.
Week 1Week 2Week 3Pool 1CanadaPool 2JapanPool 3NetherlandsPool 4FrancePool 5United StatesPool 6Philippines
Venues Preliminary round Week 1Pool 1Pool 2Ottawa, CanadaNagoya, JapanTD Place ArenaNippon Gaishi HallCapacity: 9,500Capacity: 10,000Week 2Pool 3Pool 4Rotterdam, NetherlandsOrléans, FranceRotterdam AhoyCO'MET ArenaCapacity: 16,426Capacity: 10,000Week 3Pool 5Pool 6Anaheim, United StatesPasay, PhilippinesAnaheim Convention CenterSM Mall of Asia ArenaCapacity: 7,500Capacity: 15,000
Final round All matchesGdańsk, PolandErgo ArenaCapacity: 11,409
Competition schedule ●Preliminary round●Final round
Week 16–11 JunWeek 220–25 JunWeek 34–9 JulWeek 419–23 Jul32 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 Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−04:00).
Pool 2 All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+09:00).
Week 2 Pool 3 All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).
Pool 4 All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).
Week 3 Pool 5 All times are Pacific Daylight Time (UTC−07:00).
Pool 6 All times are Philippine Standard Time (UTC+08:00).
Final round All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2:00).
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Third place match
Final
Final standing
RankTeam45678910111213141516
14–man rosterJakub Popiwczak, Łukasz Kaczmarek, Bartosz Kurek (c), Wilfredo León, Bartosz Bednorz, Aleksander Śliwka, Grzegorz Łomacz, Jakub Kochanowski, Kamil Semeniuk, Paweł Zatorski, Marcin Janusz, Mateusz Bieniek, Tomasz Fornal, Norbert HuberHead coach Nikola Grbić
Awards
Most valuable player
Best setter
Best outside spikers
Best middle blockers
Best opposite spiker
Best libero
Fair play team award
Statistics leaders
Preliminary round Statistics leaders correct at the end of preliminary round.
Best ScorersPlayerAttacksBlocksServesTotal1 Nimir Abdel-Aziz1848252172 Jesus Herrera Jaime18011212123 Yuki Ishikawa17712162054 Zhang Jingyin16222172015 Dražen Luburić172713192
Best AttackersPlayerSpikesFaultsShots1 Nimir Abdel-Aziz1846610551.833552 Jesus Herrera Jaime180838751.433503 Yuki Ishikawa1774411452.843354 Dražen Luburić1726611848.863525 Zhang Jingyin1626011248.50334
Best BlockersPlayerFaults1 Agustín Loser5161444.251562 Mohammad Mousavi3555382.921283 Javier Concepción2961492.421394 Petar Krsmanović2941282.42985 Aleksandar Nedeljković2943562.42128
Best ServersPlayerAcesFaultsHits1 Nimir Abdel-Aziz25521012.081792 Yuri Romanò21391081.751683 Jesus Herrera Jaime21521231.751964 Luciano Palonsky19441331.581965 Tine Urnaut18341291.50181
Best SettersPlayerFaults1 Bruno Rezende230659519.178313 Micah Christenson225340618.756343 Luciano De Cecco223450527.887324 Masahiro Sekita222370918.509345 Georgi Seganov215659617.92817
Best DiggersPlayerDigsFaults1 Jani Kovačič11931159.921652 Santiago Danani 10858149.001803 Tomohiro Yamamoto9630188.001444 Jenia Grebennikov93351111.621395 Robbert Andringa8335136.92131
Best ReceiversPlayerExcellentsFaults1 Yuki Ishikawa611013130.202022 Moritz Reichert541212727.981933 Kévin Tillie5269035.141484 Santiago Danani50510032.261555 Ran Takahashi47912226.40178
Final round Statistics leaders correct at the end of final round.
Best ScorersPlayerAttacksBlocksServesTotal1 Yūki Ishikawa6055702 Matthew Anderson4603493 Łukasz Kaczmarek4061474 Aleksander Śliwka3743445 Thomas Jaeschke336241
Best AttackersPlayerSpikesFaultsShots1 Yūki Ishikawa60124153.101132 Matthew Anderson4692954.76843 Łukasz Kaczmarek4072158.82684 Aleksander Śliwka3771859.68625 Thomas Jaeschke33112746.4871
Best BlockersPlayerFaultsRebounds1 Roberto Russo910163.00352 Gianluca Galassi715142.33363 Wilfredo León7782.33224 Maxwell Holt613152.00345 Thomas Jaeschke6322.0011
Best ServersPlayerAcesFaultsHits1 Mateusz Bieniek86332.67472 Kento Miyaura77272.33413 Alessandro Michieletto55351.67454 Gianluca Galassi59221.67365 Yūki Ishikawa510281.6743
Best SettersPlayerFaults1 Micah Christenson100015633.332562 Simone Giannelli75115125.002273 Masahiro Sekita74020324.672774 Marcin Janusz65116221.672285 Antoine Brizard2504625.0071
Best DiggersPlayerDigsFaults1 Tomohiro Yamamoto3513111.67492 Paweł Zatorski26838.67373 Thomas Jaeschke24828.00344 Erik Shoji241628.00425 Alessandro Michieletto24628.0032
Best ReceiversPlayerExcellentsFaults1 Ran Takahashi1654225.40632 Fabio Balaso1533528.30533 Tomohiro Yamamoto1523628.30534 Torey Defalco1354221.67605 Erik Shoji1243424.0050
Controversies
Iran team's visa issues in the United States After the announcement of the host venues and the games schedule, the president of the Iranian Volleyball Federation sent a letter to the FIVB expressing their concerns about the fact that the Iranian team is scheduled to play their games on the third week of the VNL in the USA territory. They stated that five members of the Iranian national team required further examination and additional documentation for visa issuance. The Iranian authorities also expressed their desire to host the USA's leg instead, or they might boycott the leg by not sending anyone to the USA.
The passports of the Iranian national team members were resubmitted to the US Embassy in Ankara, Turkey for a visa issuance. After necessary checks, visas were issued for the 12 players, with only four days left until the start of Week 3 of the VNL. However, five players including Amin Esmaeilnezhad were not granted visas. This situation also happened with the coach of the Iranian national team, Behrouz Ataei, who presented an incomplete documentation. After the second week round in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the rejected five players had to return to Tehran.
After failed negotiations with the American authorities, the FIVB Executive Committee specifically examined the question of the visas for the Iranian team and approved an unprecedented decision. If the United States government does not issue the visas to the key members of the Iranian team, the points of Iran and its opponents in the third week of the games would not be accounted for on the world rankings, but the results of these games would count exclusively for the tournament.
See also 2023 FIVB Volleyball Men's Challenger Cup
Notes
References
External links