Sakarya, Turkey, April 12, 2015. After they had lost their respective matches on Saturday and with this the chance to compete at the FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship in Argentina - the top six from the tournament make it there - the Czech Republic seized their last chance at the 2015 CEV U19 Volleyball European Championship – Men and booked their ticket to the European Youth Olympic Festival which will be held in Tbilisi, Georgia, later this summer. After this Russia celebrated a 3:2 victory in their last tournament match versus Bulgaria to finish their campaign at #EuroVolleyU19M in 5^th place.  

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All starting times are local (CEST+1)

7^th Place | Czech Republic vs. Serbia 3:0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-19)

The Czech Republic celebrated a great ending of the #EuroVolleyU19M and booked the ticket to the European Youth Olympic Festival after an outstanding performance against Serbia which took only 70 minutes. It was a match that began in a balanced level as both teams turned the score into their advantage time and again. A high flying attack of Czech´s Donovan Dzavoronok, the best scorer at the end of the game with 20 points and a huge attack average of 70%, brought out the second technical time out and a two point advantage for his team (16-14). In the end the Czech Republic used their opportunities in the crunch time and finished a tight set at 25-22.
The things went down for Serbia after a sleepy beginning in the second chapter (2-5). They were never in the mode to close that deficit and troubled themselves with 5 faults from the service line (16-21) and lost the second one, too (19-25). The last set took nearly the same way. The Czech Republic started out very quickly and led by 8-3. It was the point where their opponents looked broken both mentally and physically. They didn’t look like a team that is able to improve the performance to offer a great comeback, in fact they ended it with the same result and lost the third one 19-25. Donovan Dzavoronok finished it off with a nice float serve that the Serbian defence could not handle.

Jiri Zach, coach of Czech Republic: “It is a good feeling to end the tournament with a victory and the ticket to the European Youth Olympic Festival. I didn’t expect that we would win the game this way but our effort and motivation were very high. The EYOF is a good chance to compete with the best teams and I am happy that we will not missing it. Altogether the tournament was organised and played on a high level. The teams were very strong and made nearly no mistakes. The level increases more and more with the time.”

Kristian Cervinka, captain of Czech Republic: “It was a good game today. We made it better than in the last games and it is very important for us that we reached the EYOF. These are tournaments you need as a team to improve your level. I am disappointed that we are not at the World Championship but it was good to end the European Championship this way.”

Milan Djuricic, coach of Serbia: “We were here to qualify to the World Championship. But we did not reach that goal. So we are very sorry. I think we can be better. After yesterday’s loss, we were very disappointed, that is why we did not perform well today. There is nothing else we can do after this moment.”

David Mehic, captain of Serbia: “We started very well in the first match of this tournament and after that we showed our best but that was not enough for making the semi-finals or taking a ticket to the World Championship. We are very disappointed. I do not know what to say.”

5^th Place | Russia vs. Bulgaria 3:2 (25-17, 22-25, 21-25, 25-23, 15-9)

The duel of two teams that claimed their FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship ticket to Argentina already on Saturday started with a dominating Russian team that took on an 8-1 lead at the first technical time out. Bulgaria offered big problems in all aspects of the game and made a lot of mistakes in attack. Accordingly it was not a wonder that Russia had no problems to finish it with such an advantage and won the first set at 25-17. It was Anton Semyshev who convinced on the Russian side by scoring 6 points in the first chapter. Bulgaria responded quickly in the second set and found the right way to step into the match. An extraordinary block action contributed 7 points to the scoreboard and wrapped up the result to 16-14, ending it at 25-22 in advantage for young boys from the Balkan country. The third set was marked by two teams that acted on the same level (8-8) as Russia led with two points at the second technical time out (16-14). It should be their last advantage in this set. A lot of serving errors (6) and misunderstandings in defence brought their opponents from Bulgaria back in the game and cared for a small gap in the crunch time (21-19). It was enough for Bulgaria to lead the score board with 2:1 after a 25-21 set win. In the fourth chapter Russia took exactly the same lead as well as in the first one and went up to 8-1 at the first technical time out. Bulgaria couldn’t handle their own attacks (27%) and it seemed that the Russian team were on the way to the equalizer at 21-17 but four Bulgarian points in a row including 2 blocks rang in the final phase of the set which was decided by the Russian giant Kirill Kletc with a nice longline attack that bumped off the Bulgarian hopes (25-23). The tie-break showed a strong Russian team that dominated from the beginning until the end as Aleksandr Menikov blocked a Bulgarian attack and converted the first match ball at 15-9. Best player of the game was Kirill Kletc from Russia with an outstanding performance accounting for 28 points.

Mikhail Nikolaev, coach of Russia: “We expected more in this tournament. Today against Bulgaria we did our maximum and gained the fifth place. I hope that after the hard training sessions and several tournaments, we will gain some more experience and will be better.”

Dragan Ivanov, coach of Bulgaria: “We may not forget that our opponent was Russia today. We tried something and played two good sets but it wasn’t enough today. Over all we reached our goal and qualified for the World Championship on yesterday so we don’t have to be sad.”