24/07/2015 23:36
Greece hope to extend winning streak even without three key players
2015 CEV Volleyball European League - Men
Athens, Greece, July 24, 2015. Greece is currently topping the charts – side by side with Slovenia – after the first two legs of action in Pool B of the 2015 CEV Volleyball European League – Men and they are about to take on their first away matches in the competition.
The blue and white team swept their four home matches in Thessaloniki where they played Romania and Turkey but they have arrived in Rovinj, Croatia, without three key players as Apostolos Armenakis (opposite), Andreas-Dimitrios Fragkos (outside spiker) and Dimitrios Gkaras (libero) have had to pull out due to different reasons.
Armenakis got married on Friday, while Fragkos is nursing a muscle injury and Gkaras was ill and so Nikolaos Palentzas (opposite), Panagiotis Pelekoudas (middle blocker) and Konstantinos Tampouratzis (libero) have stepped in to replace them for the away matches with Croatia.
“To play Croatia at their home for sure will be tough. Our opponents have in their roster a lot of players that played or are still playing in our national league such as Ivan Raic, Ivan Mihalj, Toni Kovacevic, Danijel Galic and Leo Andric and for sure we know each other very well. They are a very good team and in their last participation in the CEV Volleyball European League they managed to reach the finals,” says Greece’s mentor Sotirios Drikos.
“I told my players that it is not the time to start making any calculations concerning the qualification to the Final Four and we have to be focussed only on the next game,” he adds.
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