Thessaloniki, Greece, June 21, 2014.  Greece’s men’s volleyball team celebrated two consecutive victories for the first time since the 2014 CEV Volleyball European League - Men started.  The southern European side beat Azerbaijan by 3:1 (25-17, 23-25, 25-20, 25-16) and kept its hopes for a spot in the semifinals alive.

Although the Greek team suffered a major blow with the absence of captain Mitar Tzourits due to illness, his replacement, youngster Georgios Tzioumakas, was Greece’s leading scorer with 22 points, 7 of which kill blocks.  Azerbaijan’s Vugar Bayramov also finished with 22 points.

Azerbaijan could not find a way through Greece’s block in the first set and the hosts dominated it easily by 25-17.  Greece started pretty well in the second set and made it 16-12, but after the second technical time-out it was a totally different game.  Azerbaijan took advantage of a series of unforced errors made by the Greek players and tied it 19 all.  Despite two consecutive points from Athanasios Protopsaltis for 21-19, Vadim Kutukov helped the visiting side to win the set by 25-23.  The third set was a tough one until Anestis Dalakouras took his place on the court.  The young wing spiker brought a lot of energy to the Greek team to control the set after the second technical time-out and finish it at 25-21.  In the fourth set the home side took a four-point lead at 11-7 and kept it comfortably until the end of the match.

Sotirios Drikos, head coach of Greece:  “Today we did what we failed to do yesterday: to react in a good manner after the loss of the second set.  The negative item is that once more we lost a set with our mistakes and lack of concentration.  Now we will have a chance to rest for a couple of days and then to prepare for our last matches in Montenegro.”

Leonardo Silie Tabares, head coach of Azerbaijan:  “Congratulations to the Greek team for the performance and the victory.  We played nothing today in all the elements of the game, and it is necessary to improve for the upcoming matches against Montenegro.”