Luxembourg, January 11, 2021. After more than a year break from the last national team competition, eager for matches and success, the Macedonian, Bosnian and Turkish national teams will enter the court in the sports hall "Boris Trajkovski" in Skopje to play the qualifying tournament of Pool C for CEV EuroVolley 2021.

After their European maiden appearance at the 2019 CEV EuroVolley in Ljubljana, the Macedonian volleyball players want to achieve performance continuity and thus use the generation of players led by the charismatic captain Nikola Gjorgiev for even more remarkable results. The historic victories over Belarus and especially the one over the European silver medalist Slovenia in the last two competitive matches, created optimism in the Macedonian team.

But standing with two feet firmly on the ground is also a virtue of the successful. "I would not like to relax even though I believe we are better than Bosnia and Herzegovina. I want to play to the maximum, we have experience, knowledge and quality to approach the right way, to achieve two victories over the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team and then to fight with Turkey for the first place in the group," said Macedonian captain Nikola Gjorgiev.

The coach of the Macedonian national team, Nikola Matijasevic, tested several young players in the preparation period, but the basis of the team that played in Slovenia will not change. Middle blocker Filip Madjunkov is injured and will not play in the first of the two tournaments in Skopje.

“Of course we all want to be first, that means to achieve win against Turkey once, if we can, twice. They have an advantage in positions at two or three volleyball players who are experienced and have played in European championships for a long time. I do not want to talk about details, they owe us from Ljubljana. In my opinion, the main and basic task is to qualify, whether as the first or as the second, it is not so important. It would be ideal to be the first on the January 16th night after the second match with Turkey, to know that we are qualified, to be able to plan, to organize, and not to wait," said Macedonian coach Matijasevic.

Today’s match against Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the 149th for the Macedonian volleyball players in the qualifiers for the major events, World and European Championships, as well as the CEV European League. A win today would be their 68th victory.

All matches from the #EuroVolleyM Qualifiers can be seen live on CEV's EuroVolley.TV!