site.btaBulgaria Cruises Past Chile 3–0 to Top Group E at Men’s Volleyball World Championship

Bulgaria’s national men’s volleyball team defeated Chile in straight sets — 3:0 (25:17, 25:12, 25:12) — in just over an hour and ten minutes of play at the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship in Pasay City, the Philippines.

With this victory, Bulgaria finishes first in Group E with 8 points and a set ratio of 9:2. In the Round of 16 next Monday, Gianlorenzo Blengini’s squad will face the second-placed team from Group D. Currently, that’s Portugal, who edged out Colombia 3:2 earlier Wednesday. However, if Cuba beats the USA later with a 3:0 or 3:1 result, then Bulgaria will face Cuba instead in the knockout stage.

Bulgaria opened the tournament with a straight-set win over Germany, followed by a dramatic five-set victory over Slovenia two days ago.

In the match with Chile, Bulgaria started with its main lineup: Simoen Nikolov, Alex Grozdanov, Aleksandar Nikolov, Iliya Petkov, Asparuh Asparuhov, Martin Atanasov, and libero Damyan Kolev. The match concluded with almost an entirely rotated second team on the court.

Once again, Aleksandar Nikolov led the way, scoring 17 points. With a total of 71 points across the three group matches, he is currently the top scorer of the tournament. Martin Atanasov added 12 points, Asparuh Asparuhov contributed 10, while Simeon Nikolov and Alex Grozdanov scored 7 each.

For Chile, Vicente Parraguez and Vicente Valenzuela were the top scorers, each finishing with 7 points.