04/01/2014 23:35
Germany and Turkey go for big final in Ludwigsburg
2014 FIVB Volleyball World Championship - Men
Ludwigsburg, Germany, January 4, 2014. 3,123 enthusiastic fans celebrated an outstanding performance by the German national team on the second day of the World Championship qualifier – Pool K in Ludwigsburg. The players of head coach Vital Heynen demonstrated their strength with a 3:0 (25-18, 25-18, and 25-17) victory over Estonia and are now only one win away from making the Final Round of the 2014 FIVB World Championship in Poland. In the second match of the day Turkey won a dramatic five-setter with Croatia (25-21, 19-25, 25-27, 30-28, and 15-13) to keep alive their chances to make it to the World Champs. In the fourth set Turkey survived to four match balls for Croatia and fought back to claim their second consecutive victory in Ludwigsburg. After two consecutive setbacks, Croatia and Estonia are out of contention for a ticket to the World Champs.
Denis Kaliberda (16), Jochen Schöps and Christian Fromm (12) collected the most points for Germany along the way to their straight win; Andri Aganits (8) was the best player from Estonia.
Germany captain Jochen Schöps said: “Thanks to the fans. It is great to play in Ludwigsburg and I hope it will be the same tomorrow. Today we did a really good job in keeping the pressure. In block and defense we played better than we did yesterday. I think the result looks pretty clear, but we didn’t feel it that way. So against Turkey we will try to play at a very high level again.”
Germany head coach Vital Heynen commented: “The best player was the amazing crowd today. We played a good game, but the crowd was better.”
Estonia captain Kert Toobal: “Germany showed world-class Volleyball; it was too much to stand for us. They were the better team and deserved the victory. Our plan was to improve our performance after the game against Turkey, but we failed.”
Estonia head coach Avo Keel concluded: “Congratulations to the German team. We are not in the kind of shape that we want. We don’t know the reason, because in the preparation everything was good and we worked hard. Our block is our biggest weakness; today we killed only one block. That made the difference in the end.”
Croatia’s Ivan Raic scored 28 times in his side 2-3 defeat to Turkey while Burutay Subasi topped the charts for the winning team with 20.
Turkey captain Ulas Kiyak said: “It was a very important win, because we want to play this final against Germany so badly; it was our goal to win this match so as to stand a chance to make it to the Worlds. Also after the match balls for Croatia we never stopped believing in our chances. It does not matter that we played five sets while Germany won in straight sets today. We really wanted this victory and this is the only thing that counts.”
Turkey head coach Emanuele Zanini: “It was a long fight that cost a lot of adrenalin. We are happy with this victory in front of such an amazing crowd.”
Croatia head coach Igor Simuncic commented: “It was a perfect game for the crowd. I think both teams deserved to win, but in the end little details made the difference.”
Click here for more info including detailed stats of the matches
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