VOLLEYBALL – BAHRAIN’S senior men’s volleyball national team begin their gold medal bid tonight in the first WAVA Men’s Volleyball Championship 2025, which gets underway in the kingdom
The eight-nation tournament, organised by the West Asia Volleyball Association (WAVA) in cooperation with the Bahrain Volleyball Association (BVA), features eight teams from across the region who will be battling it out over the next week at Isa bin Rashid Volleyball Arena, located at Isa Sports City in Riffa.
The hosts face off with Lebanon at 7pm this evening in their opening fixture in Pool A. The other teams in their group are the UAE and Jordan, while Pool B is composed of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait.
Also to be held today, the Emiratis and Jordanians clash at 1pm, Oman and Kuwait lock horns at 3pm, and Qatar and Saudi Arabia go head-to-head at 5pm.
This tournament’s preliminary round continues until Monday, after which all eight teams advance to the cross quarter-finals. The pairings will be determined based on their seeding. The semi-finals will follow along with classification games, leading up to the gold and bronze medal contests on the concluding day of action on Saturday next week.
The Bahrainis’ participation in the WAVA event comes less than a month after securing an historic crown in the AVC Men’s Volleyball Nations Cup 2025, also hosted by the kingdom in June.
The national team’s French head coach Arnaud Josserand has a 14-player line-up for the WAVA competition that has remained unchanged from their continental foray. Bahrain are to be led by top stars Mohammed Yaqoob, Naser Anan, Ali Ebrahim, Mahmood Alafyah, and Ayman Harwana, while the kingdom’s other players are Mohammed Anan, Abbas Al Khabbaz, Hussain Mansoor, Sayed Hashem Isa, Mahmoud Abdulwahed, Mohammed Jassim, Hasan Al Warqaa, Hani Ali, and Abbas Sultan.
As part of their final preparations for the competition, the Bahrainis played a pair of friendly games against their counterparts from Saudi. They won both tune-up contests in four sets.
Ahead of today’s start of play, organisers held the official preliminary inquiry, where the uniforms of each participating squad were presented and approved and the teams’ rosters were registered, along with the confirmation of other matters and conditions related.
Bahrain’s championship last month in the AVC Men’s Volleyball Nations Cup 2025 was the kingdom’s first-ever title in an Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) event.
It was also the second major achievement for the kingdom’s spikers in less than a year, as they had also secured the crown in the 23rd Arab Men’s Volleyball Championship, held in Bahrain last November.
Furthermore, the AVC Men’s Volleyball Nations Cup was the first tournament with Josserand in charge.
The former Olympian from France had taken over for Argentinian tactician Jorge Elgueta, who had guided the nationals to their Arab title.
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