United States are the new number two team in the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Ranking after a successful second competition week in the men’s Volleyball Nations League 2023. The Americans climbed as many as three positions up the chart, overtaking Brazil, Russia and Italy along the way.
VNL 2023
USA climb three spots to number two in World Ranking
China ascend two positions, Bulgaria make deepest dive
Published 10:48, 26 Jun 2023
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USA went through their four matches in Rotterdam unbeaten and, most importantly, they hammered out a clean sweep of World Ranking leaders Poland, which brought them as many 11.41 points. Combined with the points from the victories over Serbia, China and Iran, their new total increased by 21.20 points to 364.82, less than 10 points short of Poland’s 374.28.
Poland collected wins over Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, but they were not enough to offset the points dropped along with the loss to USA, so their total went down by 4.47 points.
Brazil and Italy, also on a 3-1 win-loss record each during the week, netted positive amounts of points, but not enough to stay above the Americans. So with new totals of 362.37 and 349.90 points, they each went down a spot to third and fifth, respectively.
Among all VNL participants, China made the next highest upward jump. Thanks to their win over Germany and despite the straight-set losses to the Netherlands, USA and Italy, the Chinese ascended from number 25 to number 23 in the ranking.
On the way up, China met Bulgaria, while the European team were making the deepest dive of the week, sliding six positions down, from number 20 to 26, after losing all four of their games in Orleans and dropping 13.06 points from their total. Meanwhile, Germany, who also suffered four defeats in Rotterdam and lost a total of 19.05 points, descended three positions, from number 16 to number 19.
Japan had a perfect week, extending their winning streak in the VNL to eight games now. They gained as many as 18.23 points, but that was still not enough to move further up from their seventh place in the ranking. Slovenia also stayed put in ninth place, despite gaining 11.59 points during the week.
Among the remaining VNL teams, the Netherlands and Canada went up by a spot each, to number 11 and 16, respectively. France (6th), Argentina (8th), Serbia (10th) and Cuba (13th) kept their positions from a week ago, while Iran shifted a position down to number 12.
