The Cuban volleyball players will seek, at home, to restore their physical and mental shape, in order to open against Serbia, on the 19th of this month, the third and final qualifying week of the Volleyball Nations League, whose first phase, which is qualifying for Paris-2024, concludes on the 23rd.
The best result for the Antilleans would be to win 3-0. They would obtain 10.05 points in the world ranking and would subtract the same amount from the Serbians, who, despite being ahead in the accumulated score, 251.55, occupy tenth place, compared to 250.64 from Jesús Cruz’s boys, on the ninth step.
Winning 3-1 or 3-0 also contributes, but less. What the Caribbean sextet must avoid is a defeat against Serbia, because it would be fatal. Keep in mind that, in the third and final week, they will have rivals such as Slovenia and Poland, at the top of the ranking. In this way, there is no choice but to leave the skin on the ground.
The victory over France (3-2), world champion, brought back the soul to the body of the team and the fans. If the performance of the assistants Marlon Yant (23 points) and the captain Miguel Ángel López (21), with the center backs Javier Concepción (14) and Robertlandy Simón (9), remain on that path, there is hope for victory.
Given the poor performance of the opposite Michael Sánchez – who has made an effort to help the team – mentor Cruz chose to play Osniel Mergarejo; Thus the reception was reinforced, in addition to his attack, because the reception has not been at the required level and, with that change, the conditions to organize the offensive improved. It will be necessary to assess whether the opposite Miguel David Gutiérrez, without participation until today, would be in a position to fill that demanding position, since Jesús Herrera will not attend this stage due to injury.
Too many errors constitute another of the difficulties of the team, a product of risking the service with strong and low serves, in addition to failures in the attack. It was proven how healthy it is to reduce mistakes (against France the Gauls were 22 to 29). It must be remembered that, although they won against Brazil in the first round of the League, the Antilleans reached 39 slips. Of course, behavior like this strains the response on the scoreboard, especially when you have a team with very important figures who have not been able to line up due to injuries.
