[Ace Tracker]

Brazilians win first world title after a tight match

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Associated Press


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Brazil beat Russia 3-2 to win its first ever World Volleyball Championship on Sunday.


In a match that swung back and forth, Brazil outlasted Russia 23-25, 27-25, 25-20, 23-25, 15-13.


Captain Nalbert Bitencourt scored 23 points during the 2-hour, 13-minute match for the Brazilians, who lost their only other finals appearance to the Soviet Union in 1982.


They advanced to the title match this time by beating world champion Italy in the quarterfinals and then-favorite Yugoslavia in the semifinals.


Russia, which as the Soviet Union won the title six times, advanced to the final by beating Greece and France in the previous two rounds.


The World Volleyball Championship is held every four years.

[Dissident]

What a wonderful match! I couldnt see the fifth set, so nervous it was!
Nalbert was perfect and should have got picked for best player of the Champs.
Bernardinho was also brilliant when he took Andre (best attacking player of Champs) and Mauricio to put Anderson and Ricardinho.
Giovane was also wonderful in that last part of the match.

The Russians should be applauded too, especially some players like Tetioukhine (or however you spell that difficult name) and that other attacking players I forgot the name. The one with the ugly and mad face.

Anyway, congrats Brasil on so many good performances in several sports this year.

[Superhero]

I play Volleyball at high school. Right now we have won 3 games and lost 5, lol, we have two more games, and if we win them we made the playoffs...It is very very hard to play Volleyball because u have to count on other players on the team to be as good as u & also it is a lot of communication.....
15-13 in the fifth set is EXTREMELY close.