The Bulgarian men's national volleyball team is training with an expanded squad of 16 players in Samokov, before departing for Japan, where they will conduct a preparatory-acclimatization camp for the World Championship in the Philippines. This is clear from a video posted on the BFV Facebook page. Coach Gianlorenzo Blengini has opted for a group that is working diligently for the most important competition of the year.

Two more volleyball players from the second team, Denis Bardarov and Boris Nachev, as well as libero Dimitar Dobrev, have joined the initial 13 players who started preparations on August 1st. Interestingly, Dobrev was not part of the "B" team at the "Chaika" tournament in Skopje, but according to insiders, he joined the preparation at the beginning of the second camp in Samokov.

According to official BFV information, on August 1st, the second camp began with:
Martin Atanasov, Simeon Nikolov, Alex Grozdanov, Georgi Tatarov, Stoil Palev, Preslav Petkov, Iliya Petkov, Aleksandar Nikolov, Venislav Antov, Rusi Zhelev, Damyan Kolev (currently with a bandaged left palm due to a minor injury), Krasimir Georgiev, and Asparuh Asparuhov.

The presence of Denis Bardarov suggests that he is considered a reserve option at the opposite hitter position if needed. In this situation, it is unclear whether Dimitar Dimitrov, included in the expanded list of 25 players, will get a chance to be part of the World Championship squad. For now, he is training individually and is kept on standby until the end of the month. For the tournament in Manila, each team can include a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 14 players.
It is not excluded that all 16 volleyball players will travel to Japan to avoid an urgent call-up of a player from Bulgaria in case of a potential need. A similar situation occurred before the Beijing Olympics, when the current assistant coach of "Beroe" and European junior champion Ivan Tasev was called literally from the beach to replace the injured Ivan Zarev, insiders recall.