Italy junior men’s national team
With the hosting countries and the 2012 European champions – Turkey and Italy (men) plus the Czech Republic and Turkey (women) – already pre-qualified, the winners of the various qualifying events coming up this May will eventually join the World Champs that are scheduled for June 21-30 in Brno and Prostejov (women) and for August 22-September 1 (men) in Ankara and Izmir.
Teams were distributed across the four tournaments according to the serpentine system and the composition of the various Pools reads as follows:
Men
Pool A: Russia (org.), Greece, Denmark, Montenegro, Austria
Pool B: Belgium, Poland, France (org.), Portugal, Latvia
Pool C: Bulgaria (org.), Germany, Estonia, Romania, Israel
Pool D: Serbia (org.), Spain, Slovakia, Finland, Czech Republic, Croatia
Pool D looks like the “iron group” – at least on paper – as the hosts of Serbia will try to compensate for a disastrous campaign at last year’s European Champs by playing the vice European champions of Spain anchored by their superstar Andres J. Villena.
Women
Pool A: Serbia (org.), Belgium, France, Portugal, Denmark
Pool B: Italy (org.), Slovakia, Finland, Spain
Pool C: Germany, Bulgaria (org.), Croatia, Greece, Latvia
Pool D: Russia (org.), Poland, Romania, Slovenia
Germany and Bulgaria plus a solid and very ambitious Greek squad are set to contribute the closest showdown in Pool C as only the winners of the various groups will eventually get the opportunity to join the World Champs.
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