Maribor, Slovenia, June 28, 2014. Slovenia continued its perfect record through its sixth consecutive match since the start of the season in Pool B of the 2014 CEV Volleyball European League - Men. On Saturday afternoon, the Slovenes shut out Turkey again. The home side beat the opponents by 3:0 (25-18, 26-24, 25-20) and took the lead surpassing the also unbeaten FYR of Macedonia on top of the standings by one point.
Today’s match between Turks and Slovenes started much less attractively than the one yesterday. Till the first technical time-out the teams were very equal. The monotonous game then turned in favor of the Slovenian team, which broke away to a 16-11 lead to shoot up to 25-18 at the end of the set. In the second set the Turks went up 12-8 before Luka Slabe took a break and the Slovenes woke up. With four consecutive points they came closer to 12-13 and then equalized at 15-15. Despite taking a 3-point lead, the Slovenes allowed another tie at 23-23, but managed to stay “dry” after reaching a 26-24 win. In the third set, the Slovenians took a 5-1 lead. Then the Turks woke up and fought back to tie at 14-14 and even take the lead after that. After 18-20, the home team scored an incredible series of seven consecutive points to win the set by 25-20 and the match by 3:0.
Gokhan Gokgoz made 19 points for Turkey to become the best scorer of the match. Jan Pokersnik and Klemen Cebulj scored 15 each to top the charts for Slovenia.
Ahmet Resat Arig, head coach of Turkey: “This second loss is the result of young players with less experience. The players have a problem in taking the responsibility, they are young and in the clubs they are not playing in the first teams. Because of this they are not used to taking the responsibility at the big matches, it comes out. They need to get more experience.”
Luka Slabe, head coach of Slovenia: “Today’s circumstances were almost impossible to play. It was nearly 30 degrees in the hall. I am happy that both teams finished the match with no injuries. Because of the heat we also had some problems with the basis on the floor, but luckily the matches are over. It was obviously that both teams are tired. But again, we deserved the victory and these 3 points. From now on, the really important and difficult games are coming, which will give the answers if Slovenia will be in the first place in the pool.”
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