Follow
One of the biggest international tournaments is coming to a non-traditional men’s volleyball hotbed.
USA Volleyball announced earlier this week that Evansville, Indiana, will be the host site for the U.S. Men’s National Team’s three home matches during the preliminary round of the 2021 FIVB Volleyball Nations League.
“We love competing in front of our fans in the United States and we are excited to bring these important international men’s volleyball matches to the Midwest,” coach John Speraw said in the statement. “These matches will be key to our Olympic preparation and we hope they get fans excited to cheer for us in Tokyo.”
This is the first time that a city in Indiana will play host to the Volleyball Nations League.
The 16-team tournament is a round-robin format during the preliminary round. Every country serves as a host site for one weekend with four teams playing matches against each other.
The U.S. home stand will be May 14-16 and feature matches against three of the top 10 teams in the FIVB world rankings. The defending Olympic bronze medalists and the No. 3 ranked team will play No. 1 Brazil, No. 5 Argentina and No. 10 Canada.
These four teams have clinched berths to the 2021 Olympics. In addition, the meeting between the United States and Brazil will be a rematch of the 2019 Volleyball Nations League semifinals when the United States beat the defending Olympic gold medalists in five games.
All matches will be played at the Ford Center — a 10,000-seat arena in Evansville that was built in 2011.