07/08/2015 09:22
Slovenia highly motivated to go for more glory in home matches with Greece
2015 CEV Volleyball European League - Men
Maribor, Slovenia, August 7, 2015. Slovenia will be playing Greece this weekend for the last round of preliminary action in the 2015 CEV Volleyball European League – Men. The matches will be played Saturday and Sunday in Maribor. The home team is already qualified for the Final Four tournament coming up next week in Walbrzych, whereas Greece need one more victory to secure their spot or have to hope that the Former Y.R. of Macedonia will lose at least one of their matches with Poland.
Slovenia have only dropped one point in the eight matches they have contested so far against Turkey, Croatia, Belarus and Romania, and are eager to cement their first place in Pool B, thereby making amends for last year’s disappointment when they lost to Greece in the semis, this way failing to get the highly coveted ticket for the FIVB World League.
Outside spiker Alen Sket, who started this campaign as a substitute player, performed extremely well in the last few matches and is really looking forward to playing Greece on Saturday and Sunday: “Andrea [Giani] has been giving me a lot more opportunities to play than I got it in the past, but those things do not really matter at this stage. Everybody in this team including myself has only to focus on the two upcoming matches against Greece and nothing else. Even if these two clashes will not determine who we play in the semis of the Final Four tournament, we still want to win and secure first place in our group. We are very motivated and these matches will be a good test for our team.”
Slovenia’s mentor Andrea Giani has called up young, talented middle blocker Jan Kozamernik, a member of the U21 national team, following Danijel Koncilja’s arm injury, is also focussed on the matches against Greece and does not want to set his sight on the Final Four tournament, at least not yet: “I can only say that the first stage of the European League has been successful for our team, but there are still two important matches to play. They are not important because of the result, but they are a great opportunity to develop our game and to raise it to an even higher level. Greece has a good team, with good and experienced players. They have a good setter and good outside spikers. They lost only once so far and that says it all. We need that kind of matches so that we are pushed to perform our best in order to win.”
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