The 2023 FIVB Volleyball Men's U21 World Championship was the 22nd edition of the FIVB Volleyball Men's U21 World Championship, the biennial international junior volleyball championship contested by the men's national teams under the age of 21 of the members associations of the FIVB (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. It was held in Manama, Bahrain from 7 to 16 July 2023.
Athletes must born on or after 1 January 2003.
Italy were the defending champions but failed to defend their title. Iran claimed their second title of U21 World Championship by defeating Italy 3–2 in the final match. Bulgaria hammered out a 3–0 shutout of Argentina to earn the bronze medals. Amir Mohammad Golzadeh from Iran was chosen to be the MVP of the tournament.
Host selection.
On 2 June 2022, FIVB opened the bidding process for member associations whose countries were interested in hosting one of the four Age Group World Championships in 2023 (i.e., Boys' and Girls' U19 World Championships and Men's and Women's U21 World Championships). The expression of interest of the member associations had to be submitted to FIVB by 29 July 2022, 18:00 CEST ().
FIVB announced the hosts for its four Age Group World Championship on 24 January 2023, with Bahrain being selected to host the 2023 Boys' U21 World Championship. This will be the fourth time that Bahrain hosts the FIVB Boys' U21 World Championship having previously done so in 1987, 1997 and 2019.
Qualification.
A total of 16 national teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to Bahrain who qualified automatically as the host, 10 other teams qualified through five separate continental competitions which were required to be held by 31 December 2022 at the latest. The remaining 5 teams entered to the competition by the Men's U21 FIVB World Ranking among the teams not yet qualified.
The slot allocation was setted as follow:
Pools composition.
The draw for the pools composition was held on 31 March 2023 at the FIVB headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The 16 teams were split into four pools of four. The hosts Bahrain and the top seven teams of the Men's U21 FIVB World Ranking in force at that time (as of 24 October 2022) were seeded in the first two positions of each pool following the serpentine system. FIVB reserved the right to seed the host team as head of pool A regardless of their position in the World Ranking. The remaining 8 teams were divided into three pots of four, according to their position in the same Boys' U19 FIVB World Ranking, in order to be drawn to complete the following two positions in each pool.
Men's U21 FIVB World Ranking of each team as of 24 October 2022 are shown in brackets, except the hosts Bahrain who ranked 23rd.
The draw procedure also followed the serpentine system and was as follows:
The pools composition after the draw was as follow:
Format.
Teams will play round-robin in each pool. The top two teams from each pool will advance to round-robin pools E and F of the second phase, while the rest will move to pools G and H to continue the battles for classification from eighth to 16th. The winners and runners-up of pools E and F will progress to the semifinals and eventually determine the medallists.
References.
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