S volleyball team arrives in Havana today

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 2 (acn) The US men's volleyball team will arrive today in this city to play two matches against that of Cuba, as part of the preparation of both squads to the Olympic Games next August in Rio de Janeiro.

As planned, the Americans will arrive on Thursday with their main players, including William Priddy and Sean Roodney, and the matches will take place at the Sports City Coliseum on June 4th and 6th.
Cuba will also line up its best players, highlighting the four of them inserted in foreign leagues: Rolando Cepeda and Javier Jimenez, in Greece, and Osmani Uriarte and Livan Osoria in Argentina.
United States won its ticket to Rio at Japan 2015 World Cup, where they ranked first, while Cuba earned the seat by winning the gold medal in the continental Olympic Qualifying Tournament this year in Edmonton, Canada.
During the 80's and early 90's of last century, friendly matches between the teams of Cuba and United States were very common, but failed to be held due to lack of interest of the American Volleyball Federation, Granma newspaper recalled.
In those these matches both teams had several of the best players in the world, including American Steve Timmons, Karch Kiraly, Jeff Stork, Bob Ctvrtlik and Craig Buck, and Cubans Raul Vilches, Joel Despaigne, Idalberto Valdes, Raul Diago, Lazaro Beltran, etc.