TEHRAN – Iran will start the 2022 Men's FIVB World Championship on Saturday with a match against Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medalists Argentina in Ljubljana, Argentina.

There is the three-way race between Iran, the Netherlands and Argentina, without the clear favorites, in Pool F.

In 2021, Iran won their fourth Asian continental title to qualify for the World Championship, while Argentina booked their spot at the World Championship as 2021 South American Championship runners-up.

Iran, the Netherlands and Argentina finished seventh, eighth and ninth with similar records in the VNL 2022 standings, which shows how equally matched they are ahead of their upcoming encounters in Ljubljana. They all have the potential and the ambition to do well, not just in the pool stage, but at the World Championship as a whole, and as they lock horns in the Slovenian capital, it will be down to how they perform on the day.

The Netherlands are the only team in Pool F to have ever reached a World Championship final. That was in 1994. They are also the only team to have won an Olympic title, in 1996, volleyballworld.com reported.

Egypt finished 20th at the 2018 World Championship and are currently the number 20 team in the World Ranking. Underdogs Egypt might be able to upset some of their opponents in the pool, like they did with China at the 2018 World Championship.

The competition formula will see the 24 competing teams spread across six pools of four, playing in a single round-robin format from Aug. 26 to Sept. 11. The top two nations in each pool and the four best third-placed teams will qualify for the elimination round.