Monza, Italy, September 25, 2011 - Azerbaijan overcame Croatia in Sunday night's match of Pool B at the CEV Volleyball European Championship - Women.
After a 2 hours match in Monza PalaIper, Italy, the Azeri won 3-1 (27-25, 18-25, 25-21, 25-18) booking their first 3 points of the championship.
Natalya Mammadova, top scorer with 27 points, was the leading force for Azerbaijan. Maja Poljak scored 20 points for Croatia.
Fight was the characteristic of the first set. Both Croatia and Azerbaijan were not able to take control of the game. Mira Topic smashed for a first set ball for her Croatian teammates at 25-24. Azeri Natalya Mammadova fought back bravely to finish the first set in extremis 27-25.
The team mentored by Jurko Damir turned the tables in the second set. At the beginning the Azeri had an 10-8 advantage, but the power of Sania Popovic's serves and attacks started to pay off. Croatia regained the momentum at 16-14 and never looked back until 25-18.
However, Croatia didn't have enough power to pull through. Azerbaijan came back strongly in the third set with a powerful game both at the net and in defense. As a consequence, the Azeri booked a well-deserved 3-1 win and need to wait for the Italy vs. Turkey match to know their final ranking in Pool B.
Croatia captain Maja Poliak: "If we hadn’t wasted the first set we would have been able to play a different game. We started with a psychological advantage, since we won one match while the Azeri hadn’t. However, we gave them the chance to reconsider the outcome of the competition. From their performance emerged the continuity of their training.”
Croatia opposite Sanja Popovic: “During the first two sets we were calm and confident. In fact, if we had won one more set we would have maintained a good disposition throughout the match. Overall, we were not in the best physical and mental condition.”
Azerbaijan captain Oksana Parkhomenko: “Today we had to face a stressful game; we knew it was our last chance to make it into the second round. We were very strong in defense.”