Cuba lost to the Czech Republic, in the Group 2 Pool D2 second day of the 2016 FIVB Men’s World Volleyball League, based in the NTC Aegon Arena, in the city of Bratislava, Slovakia.

Cubans lost 2-3 (19 – 25, 21 – 25, 26 – 24, 25 - 22 and 11 – 15) in a hard-fought game which lasted more than two hours.

The leading scorer of the match was Czech Michal Finger with 24 points, seconded by his teammate Adam Bartos (16), while Cuba’s most outstanding players were Abraham Alfonso with 17 points, all scored through spikes, and Dariel Albo (12), 10 spikes, 1 block and 1 ace, according to the official website of the contest.

Other Cuban players with decent performances were the setter Ricardo Calvo (10-2-5-3) and central blocker Luis Sosa (10-9-0-1).
The match statistics show the Caribbean squad led in spikes (64-55) and both sides were tied in blocks (7-7), but Czechs dominated the serve (11-8) and overwhelmingly in opponent errors (38-23).

Rodolfo Sanchez, Cuban head coach, had to replace in the second set his outside hitter and captain Rolando Cepeda, and inside hitters Osmani Uriarte and Javier Jimenez due to their unexpected and negative performance, but their young replacements managed to win the third and fourth sets, reaching thus the decisive instance where their lack of experience decided in favour of the European team.

Now Cuba appears on bottom of the rankings in Pool D2 with no win, two losses and only 1 point, worsening even more thus its chances of reaching the finals as its total balance in Group 2 is of 2 wins, 3 losses and 5 points and appears 9th.

This second of three preliminary weeks of Group 2 began today in Cairo, headquarters of Pool E, with the presence of the host Egypt, Finland, Japan and Turkey, and in Saskatoon, venue of Pool F, with the local Canada, China, South Korea and Portugal.

The latter, as host, will be in the final of this second level accompanied by the top three ranked sides in the standings.