the Blues reassure themselves by dominating Cuba

The French volleyball team, admittedly still in a bad position, was both reassured and revived in the League of Nations with a convincing victory against Cuba 3 sets to 0 (25-18, 25-20, 25 -20), Friday in Orleans.

Two days after their defeat against Argentina (3-1) in this same room, the Blues, defending champions and Olympic champions, have achieved the essentials in order to maintain a semblance of hope for the qualification for the phase final from July 19 to 23 in Gdansk, Poland, which is still very hypothetical.

Because the players of the Italian Andrea Giani completely missed the first week of competition, at the beginning of June in Nagano in Japan, and show a negative balance of four defeats against only two victories.

Suffice to say that the Blues will have little room for error in the last six qualifying matches for the final phase, which will participate, in addition to Poland, the other seven highest ranked nations.

“We are starting to find the rhythm”

From Saturday the Blues will be opposed to Canada and Sunday to Brazil, in this same room in Orleans which will be sold out. The third and final week of the qualification phase will take place in Anaheim (USA) in early July.

Deprived of their captain Benjamin Toniutti and the star Earvin Ngapeth, still unavailable, the Blues clearly dominated the Cubans, having taken the lead from the start of the match to easily win the first set 25-18.

The second will have been more hooked, won 25-20 by the teammates of Jean Patry, Kevin Tillie and captain Antoine Brizard. The Olympic champions finally concluded with a third and final set dominated once again 25-20.

“It feels good, we were a little struggling after Japan but we are starting to find the rhythm and we are very happy with it,” said Daryl Bultor at the final whistle, on the L’Equipe channel. “We are still in the preparation phase for the Euros but we managed to hold on physically and that’s good. We still have a few details to work on and I hope that will be the case against Canada. »

With this victory, France moved up from 14th to 11th place. Cuba remains 15th and penultimate ahead of China. Poland are automatically qualified for the final phase from July 19 to 23 in Gdansk, as are the seven other highest ranked nations at the end of the group stage. Then it will be the Euro, from August 28 to September 16 in Italy, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Israel.