Luxembourg, January 17, 2020. In the last day of play in Pool B, Bulgaria seized another victory, this time outclassing at 3-0 the team of Israel. Even though they had already qualified to the #EuroVolleyM Finals, the players of Silvano Prandi did not lack any motivation and grabbed the win with nice work in all the components. Israel, on the other hand, had their moments when they could have turned things around, but could not take advantage of each situation. In the final standing in Pool B, the Bulgarian Lions top the charts (12 points and 4 victories out of 4 matches), followed by Austria (4 points, 1 win out of 4 matches) and Israel (2 points, 1 win out of 4 matches).With the last match from the January Qualifiers played, it is also clear that Team MKD from Pool C qualify, too, for the #EuroVolleyM Finals as one of the second best teams across all pools, achieving this feat for a second time in their history.

Israel v Bulgaria 0-3 (20-25, 21-25, 23-25)

• Vladimir Stankov started the match as setter, as Prandi decided to give to Georgi Seganov some time to rest. Stankov, on the other hand, received a chance to show his skills and did quite good. The Lions were more concentrated on the field, despite Israel’s attempts to make it difficult for Bulgaria on reception. The players around Prandi could resist, although there was some room for improvement on serve (with five errors on this element in the first set).
• Israel started better in the second part, improving their play on attack and block. With the set unfolding, Bulgaria also pushed hard on the attack and took back the lead.
• Israel were leading in the beginning of the third set, but after the middle of the set, Bulgaria could regain control. It was a close call in the last minutes of the third set with both Israel and Bulgaria playing good on attack (14 attacks for each team in this section of the game).
• Bulgaria finished the match with 61% efficiency from their spikers.
• Tsvetan Sokolov became Top Scorer for a fourth consecutive time in the Qualifier, recording 16 points. For Bulgaria, Asparuh Asparuhov contributed with 12 points as well.
• Tamir Hershko from the home team scored 14 times.

“I am happy that we managed to lift the team. My players looked motivated to fight and we were ready for the match. However, we are still not quite at the level of Bulgaria, for now we can aim at playing at the same level of teams such as Austria, who are halfway through the European rankings,” Israeli coach Noam Katz said. 

"We really hope that we have made our fans in Bulgaria happy now that we have qualified for the EuroVolleyM Finals. We hope also that they have enjoyed how we performed and how we played. We need to appreciate all the small things that bring smiles on our faces, and we hope that our achievement in Israel has made lots of people smile. I want to wish to all of you to stay healthy because this remains the most important thing in these strange times we are all living in," Tsvetan Sokolov, captain of Team Bulgaria said.