Women’s volleyball rising stars ready to battle in Croatia and Hungary

The future stars of international women’s volleyball have an important couple of weeks ahead of them as they reunite in Croatia and Hungary to represent their national teams at the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Girls’ U19 World Championship from August 1-11.

With 24 national teams in contention, the 11-day tournament will have Osijek, in Croatia, and Szeged, in Hungary, as the two host cities for the 104 matches that will be held in the event.

The tournament will be streamed live on the Volleyball World YouTube channel.

This will be first time a Girls’ U19 World Championship is held, following a decision of the FIVB Board of Administration in February 2022 to align the Age Groups in both genders. Previously, the women would play in the U18 Age Group.

For the start of the tournament, which will for the first time be co-hosted by two nations, the 24 national teams were split into four pools, with NORCECA teams from Canada, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States.

Argentina, Cameroon, Chile, China, Egypt and Hungary form Pool A; Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Nigeria, Puerto Rico and Türkiye are in Pool B; Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Italy, Peru and Thailand will compete in Pool C; Japan, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Serbia and the United States were drawn in Pool D.

Three matches held simultaneously will start the tournament on Tuesday, with the United States battling Korea and Türkiye facing Nigeria in Osijek while Argentina meets China in Szeged. The three encounters will begin at 15:00 local time (13:00 UTC).

2023 FIVB Volleyball Girls' U19 World Championship: Match Schedule

The two host countries will also be on the court in the opening day, with Croatia playing against Germany in Osijek and Hungary challenging Chile in Szeged – both duels will start at 18:00 local time (16:00 UTC).

Pool play will go on from Tuesday to Sunday (with a day off on Friday) and the top four teams in each pool will advance to the elimination rounds, from where the tournament continues in a single elimination format, with the Round of 16, the quarterfinals, the semifinals and the medal matches.

The national teams that don’t advance from pool play will battle for the spots from 17th to 24th. The same will happen with the sides that are knocked out in the playoffs, with the ones eliminated in the Round of 16 playing for spots from 9th to 16th and the ones that lose in the quarterfinals competing to finish between fifth and eighth place.

China are the national team with the most U18 world titles, having won the tournament four times (2001, 2003, 2007 and 2013). Brazil (1997, 2005 and 2009) and Russia/the Soviet Union (1989, 1993, 2021) come right next with three victories each. Italy (2015 and 2017), Japan (1995 and 1999), Korea (1991), Türkiye (2011) and the United States (2019) are the other world champions in the age group.

Among the international stars that first appeared in the U18 World Championship are Russia’s Evgeniya Artamonova-Estes, Cuba’s Taismary Agüero, Brazil’s Fabiana Claudino, USA’s Jordan Larson, China’s Yuan Xinyue and Italy’s Paola Egonu.