Bulgaria dropped one position in the FIVB World Ranking after the first week of the Volleyball Nations League. The national team started the tournament as No. 9 in the world with 261.30 points, but after four matches played, it now occupies 10th place with 255.00 points.
Gianlorenzo Blengini's team started with a 1:3 defeat to Belgium, which cost 9.46 ranking points. This was followed by two valuable victories – 3:0 against Iran and 3:1 against Argentina, bringing in 7.58 and 6.77 points respectively. In their last match of the week, however, the Bulgarians lost to Serbia 0:3 and lost another 11.20 points.
Bulgaria's overall balance isminus 6.30 points, which led to a drop from ninth to tenth place in the world ranking. Serbia took advantage of this, overtaking the Bulgarian team and is now ninth with 255.77 points.

The most serious negative effect on Bulgaria's position was the defeat by Serbia, while the biggest dividend came from the clean victory against Iran. Ultimately, the 14.35 points gained could not compensate for the 20.65 points lost.
However, the shifts did not only affect Bulgaria. The biggest change at the top of the ranking is related to Poland. The Poles started the VNL as the leader in the world ranking, but after defeats by Slovenia and Japan, they lost valuable points and are now second with 374.83 points. Thus, Italy climbed to the top of world volleyball with 384.12 points and for the first time since the start of the season leads the FIVB ranking.

Thus, after the first week of the VNL, Bulgaria is on the border between the top ten teams in the world, while the battle for the leading position is already in favor of Italy, which displaced Poland from the top of the ranking.