Argentina (ARG) vs. Belgium (BEL) men - Pool C #7233210

As the race for the two tickets to the Olympic Games from Pool C of the men’s FIVB Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifiers

in Xi’an heats up, two of the main contenders, Argentina and Belgium, engaged in an epic five-set battle on Wednesday. Powered by Facundo Conte, the South Americans emerged victorious to leap over their European opponents in the current pool standings. Favourites Poland continue undefeated. Canada jumped into the runner-up position after shutting out hosts China, while Bulgaria stayed well within reach of the coveted Paris 2024 berths after a straight-set upset of the Netherlands.

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After taking a two-set lead against the Belgians, Argentina failed to grab the three points, allowing the opponents to level the match and push it to five. Still, the South Americans celebrated in the tie-breaker emerging with an important victory. In a very competitive first set, Argentina broke away only after 19-19 to edge forward on the scoreboard. After trailing in the first half of the second set, Belgium took control for a while, but again, after catching up at 19-19, Argentina ran off to close the set and double their lead. After 8-8 in the third set, the Europeans took the lead and did not let go until the end of the fourth set to level the match and prompt a fifth set. In the tie-breaker, the South Americans recovered from an early 5-2 Belgian lead, and, with star outside hitter Facundo Conte spearheading the attack, turned it around to a narrow 15-13 win, as middle blocker Agustin Loser delivered the match winner with a spike kill.

Overall in the match, Belgium outscored Argentina, edging them in attack (63-62 in spike kills), in serving (4-3 in aces) and in accuracy (30-34 in unforced errors), while the eventual winners outplayed their opponents in blocking (9-7 in stuffs). Spiking at a 66% success rate, Facundo Conte led Argentina with 21 points, including two blocks. Agustin Loser added another 14, including three blocks, while middle Nicolas Zerba and opposite Bruno Lima contributed 11 points each. Belgian opposite Ferre Reggers produced the match high of 27 points. He raised three kill blocks and spiked at a 62% success rate. Outside hitter and captain Sam Deroo scored 21 times for Belgium. Middle Pieter Coolman tallied another 12 points.

After this game, Argentina stand third on a 3-1 win-loss record and eight points. Also on eight points, but on a 2-2 win-loss record, Belgium are in fourth.

Canada jumped above both of them, on 3-1 and nine points, after shutting out hosts China in the last match of the day in Xi’an. With four aces and 16 kills in attack towards a match-high 20 points, outside hitter Stephen Maar led the North Americans to a victory. Spiking at an impressive 77% success rate, the other outside, Eric Loeppky produced 17 points, all in attack, towards the victory. Their counterpart Yu Yuantai was China’s most prolific player with 14 points.

Bulgaria, ranked 30th in the world before the tournament, lowest in the pool, produced another upset, this time a shutout of number 10 the Netherlands, and climbed to fifth place on 2-2 and six points, above sixth-placed Netherlands (1-3 and four) and seventh-placed China (1-3 and three). Four Bulgarians reached the double digits in scoring. Opposite and captain Tsvetan Sokolov led the way with 13 points, including three blocks. Middle Nikolay Kolev impressed with six kill blocks towards an 11-point total. Outsides Martin Atanasov and Aleksandar Nikolov finished with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Dutch star opposite and captain Nimir Abdel-Aziz was the best scorer of the match with 16 points.

Poland faced few issues in their sweep of Wednesday’s game against winless Mexico to stay on top of the table undefeated, with 10 points. Their outside hitter Tomasz Fornal was the leading scorer of the match with 10 points, including three blocks and an ace.