World champions Cruzeiro claim 11th South American title

For a second straight year, Sada Cruzeiro and Praia Clube will represent Brazil at the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship as the two teams collected the spots in play at the 2025 Volleyball Men’s Club South American Championship, which was held this week in Uberlândia, Brazil.

The Brazilian sides met on Sunday in the tournament’s gold medal match and the reigning world champions fought hard to avoid seven Praia match points on set four and claim a dramatic 3-2 (26-28, 25-16, 19-25, 32-30, 18-16) victory after almost three hours of action. Fellow Brazilian SESI Bauru completed the podium in third place.

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It was Cruzeiro’s 11^th South American title and the ninth won in consecutive editions of the tournament – the Brazilian giants secured their 11 trophies in the last 13 editions of the event.

Backup opposite Welinton Oppenkoski was Cruzeiro’s unlikely hero in the gold medal match as he came off the bench to replace Olympic champion and Club World Championship MVP Wallace de Souza and produced a team-high 22 points, 19 of which scored in the last two sets, to lead their comeback. The 24-year-old scorer was selected as the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

“I really didn’t expect to receive this award,” he said. “I’m very happy with our victory, with another title, and for having been able to help the team. When someone is not well, we have people here who are ready to step up. I tried to bring some calm to the team and I think hat we built this victory and this comeback point after point.”

Olympic champion outside hitter Douglas Souza scored 21 points for Cruzeiro, while Praia got 29 points from opposite Franco Paese and 22 from outside hitter Maicon França.

Brazil’s SESI Bauru defeated Argentina’s Monteros Voley 3-1 (23-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-20) earlier on Sunday to finish third. Argentina’s Ciudad Voley and River Plate, Chile’s Murano, Bolivia’s Olympic and Uruguay’s Juan Ferreira occupied the remaining spots, ranking from fifth to ninth.

The tournament’s Dream Team fatured players from the three Brazilian teams, having Cruzeiro’s Matheus Brasilia at setter, Praia’s Franco at opposite, SESI’s Lukas Bergmann and Praia’s Maicon at outside hitter, Cruzeiro’s Lucas Saatkamp and Praia’s Pietro Santos at middle blocker and SESI’s Douglas Pureza at libero.

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