Luxembourg, January 18, 2021. An intense week of volleyball from the CEV EuroVolley Men 2021 Qualifiers has come to an end this past weekend as the tournaments from Pool B, held in Israel and Pool C held in North Macedonia came to a close. As a result of these tournaments, three of the teams involved, Bulgaria, Turkey and North Macedonia have reserved their places at the Final Round scheduled to take place later in the year. 

While Bulgaria and Turkey managed to qualify as pool winners, Team MKD's qualification to the Final Round comes as a result of their excellent performance during the qualifiers, managing to occupy second position and a combination of matches won, ranking points, set ratio and points ratio that guarantees them a spot among the top five runners-up across all pools even before completion of the remaining qualifiers scheduled for May.

Pool B Tournament

With hosts Israel, Austria and Bulgaria at the starting line, Pool B seemed to have as clear favourites Bulgaria, lead by experienced coach Silvano Prandi, for his second spell in charge of the “lions” and they definitely did not disappoint. With four wins out of as many matches and only one set lost along the way, the Bulgarians were dominantly pursuing their target of getting maximum points available and with that qualification to the CEV EuroVolley Men 2021. 

However, with second place possibly also offering a spot at the Final Round both Israel and Austria knew that their head to head matches might carry a lot of weight. They ended up sharing the wins and also some of the points.

Pool B Final Standings: 1. Bulgaria – 12 pts; 2. Austria – 4 pts; 3. Israel – 2 pts.

Key statistics

• Bulgarian star, Tsvetan Sokolov was the top scorer of the pool (66) having played all 4 matches (13 sets) for a 5.08 average/set. Not far behind Sokolov were Israel’s Tamir Hershko (65) and Austria’s Alexander Berger (63) and Niklas Kronthaler (63).

• Israel’s Alexander Osokin and Bulgaria’s Tsvetan Sokolov top the blocking charts – 8 Killing Blocks each 

• Israel’s Omri-Shmoel Shwartz had an impressive performance throughout the tournament which now sees him top of the Qualifiers’ overall reception charts - 66 receptions / 37.88 % 

• Alexander Berger (AUT) with 59 killing spikes and Tamir Hershko (ISR) with 57 were the two outstanding performers.

Pool C Tournament

Despite having Turkey as favourites, Pool C was widely regarded as the more balanced pool before the start of the matches, with North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina expected to put up quite the fight. After the first two matches however things became clearer, with both Turkey and North Macedonia managing convincing wins over Bosnia and Herzegovina before their first head to head clash. With the first encounter between the two won by Turkey (3-1), North Macedonia had to patiently wait for their chance to come again with their second match against Turkey only a few days later. 

Highly motivated to reach their second participation at the Final Round of Eurovolley, Nikola Matijasevic’s men made the most of the opportunity given and managed a convincing and surprising win against pool favourites Turkey in the last match of the tournament (3-1). Following this result, Turkey as pool leaders and North Macedonia as one of the best teams to finish second in the Qualifiers go hand in hand to the Final Round of CEV EuroVolley Men 2021.

Pool C Final Standings: 1. Turkey – 9 pts; 2. North Macedonia – 9 points; 3. Bosnia and Herzegovina – 0 pts.

Key Statistics

• North Macedonia’s Nikola Gjorgiev was Pool C’s Top Scorer with 88 pts and a 5.87 set/average. Hi performance is 3rd best in the Qualifiers so far.

• Turkey’s Oguzhan Karasu was dominant for his team and lead the pool in Killing Blocks (10), 7th best performance of the Qualifiers. 

• Burat Merk (TUR) managed 60 receptions and a percentage of 31.67% that sees him 5th in the overall standings.

• Top scorer Nikola Gjorgiev (MKD) with 82 Killing Spikes / 5.47 set average was top of Pool C and sits 3rd overall.