VOLLEYBALL – BAHRAIN are eager to succeed for their home fans as they head into the knockout stages of the AVC Men’s Volleyball Nations Cup 2025, currently being hosted by the kingdom.
The kingdom’s senior men’s volleyball national team take on their counterparts from Chinese Taipei tonight in one of four quarter-final games, to be played at Isa bin Rashid Arena, located at Isa Sports City in Riffa.
While the nationals acknowledge the tough challenge ahead of them, head coach Arnaud Josserand expressed his confidence in his players, who are extra motivated to do well on their home court.
“I think we are pretty close from what we can do and give the best volleyball we can play,” Josserand told the GDN. “There are always some little details like, when we play well, we want to play very well.
“Sometimes, just to keep playing well is enough, but it’s the desire to do a little bit more that makes us make some mistakes sometimes.
“But it’s a good feeling from the team. They want to give a lot, and plus we are at home so we want to give to the fans. I love our team.”
Josserand expects to face a heated battle when they take on Chinese Taipei this evening at 7pm.
Their opponents finished the preliminary stage as Pool C runners-up following a win against the Philippines and a loss to Pakistan, although they took the Pakistanis to the very maximum in an exciting five-setter.
“Chinese Taipei are a good team,” Josserand explained. “What I see from them is they are the same like Indonesia – they play really fast, they have good setters, good wing spikers, so it’s going to be difficult.
“It’s a quarter-final, an elimination game, so we need to be really efficient from the first ball, like what we did in our game against Indonesia. We need to start fast and just say ‘We are at home, we are the host team, and we want to go as far as possible’.”
The Bahrainis topped Pool A from the preliminaries after winning their two games against Thailand and Indonesia.
In today’s other quarter-final fixtures, Pool B winners and defending champions Qatar battle Pool D runners-up Vietnam, Pool D winners South Korea will face Pool B runners-up Australia, and Pool A runners-up Indonesia face Pool C winners Pakistan.
Following the round of eight, classification matches will be held tomorrow, and then the semi-finals will take place on Monday. The bronze and gold medal contests will then be held on Tuesday, the tournament’s concluding day.
Classification games will also be held Monday and Tuesday.
This year’s AVC Men’s Volleyball Nations Cup has been organised by the Bahrain Volleyball Association, in cooperation with the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) and Volleyball World.
It is being held under the patronage of Supreme Council for Youth and Sports first deputy chairman, General Sports Authority chairman, and BOC president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Entrance to all games is free and all are invited to watch the exciting volleyball action. The winners of the competition will earn a berth in the 2026 Asian Men’s Volleyball Championship.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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