Baku, Azerbaijan, July 4, 2014.  Poland defeated home side Azerbaijan by 3:2 (25-21, 25-20, 20-25, 27-29, 15-12), but missing out on gaining the full three points from this first match of the fifth weekend in the 2014 CEV Volleyball European League - Men will cost the visiting team dearly in the race for the second place in Pool A and a spot in the semifinals.

The first part was even through 4-4, but then Poland scored four points in a row to break away and never look back.  Despite some good blocking by Dmitriy Obodnikov and Aleksey Chervyakov, David Dryja’s performance at the net secured Poland’s victory at 25-21.  The second set went point for point through 7-8, after which the visiting squad started making those break points to extend its lead to 13-8.  After taking his second time-out of the set at 13-19, Azerbaijan’s head coach Leonardo Silie Tabares inspired his players to fight back with four points in a row, but this was not enough to catch up and Poland doubled its lead after 25-20.

Azerbaijan started well in the third set taking a 10-5 lead.  Farid Jalabov showed a good performance in offense and helped his team widen the gap to 16-11 at the second technical time-out.  Poland’s late attempt at a comeback led only to 23-20 Azerbaijan’s way, as two rallies later the set was over.  Poland was in control of the fourth set through after the second technical time-out, but with Vugar Bayramov playing well in blocking the home team not only leveled the score at 18-18, but also went ahead for 22-20.  Poland immediately tied to prompt an exciting finale of the set, but in the end the Azeri players showed more character to tie the match after 29-27.

In the tie-breaker, Poland took advantage of some poor reception by Azerbaijan to take an 8-5 lead, after which all it had to do is maintain its lead through the eventual 15-12.

Leonardo Silie Tabares, head coach of Azerbaijan:  “We could win today, but the team made many mistakes in the match and therefore we lost.  Our team got one point.  Tomorrow we will try to win and show a good game.”

Andrzej Kowal, head coach of Poland:  “In the first two sets our team played well in attack and in block, but in the third and in the fourth we made many mistakes in reception and serving.  All our players were good, but Mateusz Bieniek played especially well.  Tomorrow we play again.  We will try to win again and show a good performance.”

The two teams’ last match of the pool phase will take place on Saturday at AYS in Baku, starting at 17:00 local time, and is scheduled for live streaming on LAOLA1.tv.