Olympic runners-up Brazil outlasted Serbia 3-2 here on Sunday for their eighth FIVB World League title. With the 22-25, 25-23, 25-22, 23-25 and 15-12 victory, the Brazilians tied the record of the Italians, who have also been crowned for eight times in the annual volleyball tournament founded in 1990.
"It's a lot of joy. For us it is good to come up here and win, since we didn't play so well in Brazil and lost the title last year, " said Brazil head coach Bernardo Rezende.
"I think that this generation still make a lots of mistakes. I hope they will learn from this competition and we will keep working and try to keep being competitive, that's our goal for this cycle."
In the tiebreaker, Brazil overcame an early 6-3 deficit to go up 12-9, thanks to Endres Murilo's storming serving which lifted his team to a decisive 4-0 run. Ivan Miljkovic pulled Serbia within 14-12, only to find Giba drive a ball off the block out of bounds to seal the victory in the marathon match.
"We are very sad for not winning in front of this wonderful crowd and because we didn't bring joy to the whole nation," said Serbia head coach Igor Kolakovic. "During the fifth set, it seemed like we could win this match, but they played even better and defended a lot of hard balls."
Neves Vissoto notched up game-high 29 points for Brazil with Murilo and Saatkamp Lucas adding 15 apiece.
Serbia started well in front of a full-capacity home crowd of 22, 600, jumping to a 5-2 lead in the opening set, while Brazil immediately answered with three straight points to tie it at 5-all.
Then it was hotly contested until Serbia used a 4-1 run capped by a Miljkovic ace to go up 22-19 and held on to clinch the opener.
Miljkovic, who scored nine points in the first set, continued to strike hard from the sides to lead Serbia overcome a 14-11 deficit to overtake the lead at 15-14. Brazil finally found the way to stop Miljkovic as Giba and Sidao combined to stuff him for a 20-19 advantage.
After another solid block of Lucas and Rezende Bruno against Bojan Janic pushed Brazil up to 24-22, Janic came back to make it 24-23, only to find Vissoto snare the set for Brazil with a smash.
Brazil continued to play excellent defense and blocking early in the third set for an amazing 16-8 lead. Serbia steadily pulled within 24-22 when Giba tore open the defense of two blockers to land the set winner.
It was tied at 21-all in the fourth set when the referee changed his original judgment after watching screen replay to award a controversial point to Brazil, but Serbia ran off four of the last five points to force the tie-breaker.
Miljkovic finished with 28 points for Serbia, who settled for the silver medal for the second year in a row.
Earlier on Sunday, Russia clean swept Cuba for the bronze.