NO win is a given in the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.
And in just the second day of the tournament, there has already been some near-upsets and flat-out shockers.
The biggest one yet was completed by world No. 26 Turkey.
It only took three sets for the Turks to dispatch the world’s fifth-ranked team and the highest-seeded Asian side in the competition, 19-25, 23-25, 19-25.
Head coach Slobodan Kovac, who’s only taken charge of the national team for just about two months, couldn’t have wished for a bigger breakthrough and a better birthday gift too.
The win didn’t just take away their walkover status. It made sure that to the rest of the world, they’re no longer ‘nobodies.’
“[People think] we are nobody. Everybody thinks we are just some other team who will play here and after the second round go home,” Kovac said.
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“I try to explain to my players that we don’t want to be nobody. We want to demonstrate, because my players play the best European teams, and share the quality to play high-level volleyball.”
It was also Turkey’s first win over Japan in competitive play in nine years.
Upsets galore early on
Then there was another herculean upset as world No. 29 Portugal left a stunning first impression in this year’s FIVB Worlds by beating 10th-ranked Cuba, 20-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-19, to grab its share of the lead with USA in Pool D.
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Close to mimicking such a breakthrough was world No. 75 Libya, the third lowest-ranked team in the tournament.
After snatching Set 1 from No. 11 Canada, it nearly forced the first five-setter of the competition but just fell short in a 25-22, 20-25, 12-25, 27-29 loss.
As far as our Nationals are concerned, giving 11-time African champion Tunisia a proper go in their tournament debut was a promising sign of what can still be expected the rest of the way in pool play.
While stunning giants Egypt and Iran would be easier said than done, days like today proved that the difficult challenges aren’t always impossible to pull off.
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