Among the best news of 2022 for Cuban volleyball was the qualification for the Nations League (VNL) 2023, replacement of the old World League, where the best teams in the world will be involved.

Our voly had been out of this elite for several years, where it had been for decades, and staying there will be the first challenge of this first season.

Currently, the Cuban national team is in Argentina to play some warm-up matches, after which they will continue their journey to Canada, where the first four matches of the VNL will take place.

The first game against the Canadians will be crucial, not only because being the starter sets the pace for our team, but because they are the most accessible rivals in the hard key in which they find themselves at the start.

As we know, the League is played in rotating rooms and after these debuts on the 6th against Canada, Cuba will have to face no less than the two finalists of the last World Championship, Brazil (10) and Italy (9) , and also Pays Basses (8).

For the following week, in the French city of Orleans, the rivals will be Japan on the 21st, Slovenia on the 22nd, France on the 23rd and Bulgaria on the 25th. Here, the French hosts are the most powerful team, and with the rest there is a chance of victory if it is well played

The last dates of this qualifying phase will be shared between the Philippines and the United States, but ours will not play on Asian soil, but will face off in Anaheim against the local Americans on July 5, Serbia on July 6, the Germany on July 7 and Iran on July 9. In this way they will have completed their schedule with a match against each of the scheduled teams, which are not all those involved in the competition, since we will not have a net through Argentina, China and Poland, this last place of the final phase, to which the first eight located in the preliminaries would access.

The Cuban team has a major problem for this tournament, and it is the injury of its three main attackers: Robertlandy Simón, Roamy Alonso and Liván Osoria, which will leave Javier Concepción the responsibility of taking on almost all the sets.

Usually Cuba doesn’t rely on centre-backs to play their game, but they’re still an important option to freshen up the attack, and they’re sure to miss that attacking variety, let alone what they mean by blocking. The three injured are the most experienced and in addition to their quality they have weight in the locker room, so they will be a very important victim.

The rest is at its best, and if Miguel Ángel López maintains the level with which he plays in Brazil, very good results can be obtained in the VNL, but if his performance is that of the last World Cup, we will have a lot to work on. with these significant losses.

Cuba can fight a hundred percent with anyone, but with the team already decimated, I think the best thing to do is to throw the rest against Canadians, Japanese, Dutch, Bulgarians, Slovenians , Serbs, Germans and Iranians, which are lists within our reach even with the absences mentioned.

Beating these teams would theoretically give us a bye to Gdansk, but we’ll talk about that in due course, we need to make a good debut first.