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The Dominicans carried over three points more than Belgium to the next round, with much greater chance of being one of the three top teams in this pool, and more importantly, they are one of only four undefeated teams at this WC. With a win over Germany, who beat Belgium in three preparation games some ten days prior, Croatia, and Italy before 9,000 Italian fans, the Dominican Republic have done very well here so far. They are tall and physically powerful, their three attackers are very good. Their blocker was the best one in the group stage, and they have one of the best liberos. That makes them comparable with Portoriku or Cuba, Belgium's opponents from the group stage. Both of those teams struggle with reception and make a lot of mistakes in their matches. That is, however, not the case with the Dominikans. Belgium have Van Hecke at their disposal, but both starting receivers are more defense-oriented. Second best scorer on the Belgian team is middle blocker Heyrman. These two teams have met twice in the preparation matches in China. Each team won one of them in straight sets. But, we have to note that Dominicans couldn't count on libero Castillo and middle blocker Vargas. Belgium, on the other hand, have to do without one of their starting middle blockers Aelbrecht.