05/01/2014 20:09
Germany rocks and with third straight win claims ticket to World Champs
2014 FIVB Volleyball World Championship - Men
Ludwigsburg, Germany, January 5, 2014. The home guys of Germany accomplished their mission in Ludwigsburg. In the last match of the World Championship qualifier – Pool K the home heroes scored their third consecutive victory (25-17, 25-19, and 25-19) over Turkey to claim a ticket to the 2014 World Championship in Poland. In front of 3,650 spectators Germany displayed another classy performance to claim their third straight win of the tournament.
Denis Kaliberda was the best player of the game with 16 points, followed by Georg Grozer with 15. Burutay Subasi scored 21 points for Turkey but it was not enough to stop the run of the home guys.
Germany captain Jochen Schöps said: “We put them under enormous pressure with our good serve. It was an important step for us and German Volleyball. But we want to go further and perform as good as possible in Poland.”
Germany head coach Vital Heynen: “What we did was good. We didn’t lose any set in three games and that means that we can handle the pressure to win in a clear way. But now we look forward to the World Championship in Poland.”
Turkey captain Ulas Kiyak: “It was nice to be here. The German team was dominant and deserved the victory. They controlled us the whole game, but we want to learn from this defeat for the future. Germany played on a really high level.”
Turkey head coach Emanuele Zanini concluded: “I agree with my captain. Germany controlled the match totally; they played great. Congratulations to the German team and all the best for the World Championship in Poland. Hope my players learned from this game. It was a good lesson about discipline and high-level Volleyball. For me it’s clear what we have to do next time we will compete with top teams like Germany.”
In the first match of the day – which did not have an impact on the race for the Worlds – Estonia surprised Croatia with a 3:1 victory (25-21, 23-25, 25-17, and 25-18) to end the tournament in third place.
Croatia head coach Igor Simuncic: “Congratulations to Estonia. They used the chance we offered. It was hard to come back after the match against Turkey from yesterday. We came with bigger expectations to Ludwigsburg, but my players enjoyed it to be a part of this tournament.”
Estonia captain Kert Toobal: “Finally we won, but this was the way we wanted to start in this tournament. Of course there was a kind of positive emotions, but I think that Croatia was tired and we used our chances and played better in block. In the end we came here for more than a third place.”
Estonia head coach Avo Keel: “They key to success was that we reduced our mistakes from yesterday. Croatia had problems in receiving the ball; so this was the key for our victory today. Croatia is a good team and they had a hard game yesterday. This was also a big advantage for us. The atmosphere was great, because normally the fans never support teams from other countries like that. It was amazing.”
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