Plovdiv, Bulgaria, September 2, 2016. The competition in Pool I of the Final Round of the 2016 CEV U20 Volleyball European Championship - Men started off with two exciting five-setter with the eventual winners staging impressive come-from-behind victories. The reigning U19 continental champions from Poland persevered to return from two sets down against France and claim a 3-2 (20-25, 22-25, 25-15, 25-22, 15-11) victory. Next in Plovdiv, Ukraine disappointed the enthusiastic home fans with a complete turnaround for 3-2 (26-28, 22-25, 25-23, 28-26, 15-9) against Bulgaria. In the last match of the day, Germany did not allow any surprises and, after Slovenia won the first set, coach Johan Verstappen’s squad stepped in to master a 3-1 (25-27, 25-18, 25-19, 25-21) victory with Tobias Krick as the top scorer.
The first set was very balanced through 16-15 in favour of Poland. The French scored six in a row on Mathieu Manusauaki’s serves to open a 20-15 gap, which they maintained through the end of the set marked by Rémi Bassereau’s block-out for 25-20.
In the second set, France broke away earlier – first for 8-5 and then to 13-8. After 23-17, Poland attempted a comeback with a series of four points, but it was too little, too late. France closed it off at 25-22 on a serving mistake by the opponents.
Poland started their real comeback at the beginning of the third set. They stepped up their blocking efforts to establish domination on the court and win sets 3 and 4 by 25-15 and 25-22, respectively.
France started the tie-breaker a little better, but went quite even through the side switch, which came at 8-7 Poland’s way. Four points in a row for the Poles with Bartosz Kwolek behind the serving line led to match point at 14-9. Three rallies down the road it was Kwolek again who finished it all off with a back-row smash for 15-11.
Bartosz Kwolek and France’s Joachim Panou became the best scorers of the match with 16 points each.
Barthelemy Chinenyeze, captain of France: “We started well in the first two sets without any big mistakes, but then we made a really big one and unfortunately lost the match.”
Jocelyn Trillon, coach of France: “Congrats to the Polish team because they found the key how to beat us. They stopped making big mistakes, because they made a lot of them during the first two sets. We need to win against Germany to reach the semi-finals.”
Jakub Kochanowski, captain of Poland: “We are going to improve our service for the next match and we hope that we will keep winning.”
Sebastian Pawlik, coach of Poland: “We played not so well, especially in the first two sets. When we started playing better, the result also improved for us. I am glad that we won and I hope we will play better in the next matches.”
Bulgaria vs. Ukraine 2-3 (28-26, 25-22, 23-25, 26-28, 9-15)
With Oleksiy Holoven serving, Ukraine scored seven in a row to take a 14-8 lead in the first set. With some great blocking efforts, the Bulgarians started chiseling off their deficit, but they were struggling to catch up completely and Ukraine reached set point at 24-22. But it was time for Bulgaria’s tall front line with Plamen Shekerdzhiev, Aleks Grozdanov and Radoslav Parapunov to shine. With some fantastic spikes and blocks they turned things around for a 28-26 win.
Bulgaria started the second set well to reach a four-point advantage at 7-3 and 9-5, but allowed the opponents to catch up at 10-10 and provide for an interesting development. At 21-21 was the last time the score was level. It was Shekerdzhiev, who eventually put an end to the set. He brought the set point with a powerful back-row smash and converted it with yet another one for 25-22.
Set 3 was very even and could have gone either way. First, Bulgaria were up by three points, then Ukraine maintained a two-point lead for a while before eventually reaching set point at 24-23. An unforced error from the home team gave the set to the opponents at 25-23.
Set 4 was somewhat similar to the first one with Bulgaria taking their time to cancel out a six-point deficit and prompt a thrilling ending. Only this time, after alternating failed set (and match) points, eventually it was Ukraine’s Dmytro Viietskyi, who put the ball on the floor for 28-26.
The decisive set was quite one-sided. The Ukrainians had more precision in their game and kept control of the scoreboard throughout the tie-breaker. A fantastic one-man block by Heorhii Klepko set the Ukrainian joy loose at 15-9.
Radoslav Parapunov blew up the scorers’ charts with 31 points for Bulgaria. His teammate Plamen Shekerdzhiev, as well as Ukraine’s most prolific player Oleh Plotnytskyi, scored 18 points each.
Vladimir Nikolov, coach of Bulgaria: “At first we played really well with passion and emotion and logically won the first two sets, but the truth is that we did not manage to keep up the same rhythm and at the end we lost by 2-3.”
Mykola Pasazhin, coach of Ukraine: “I am so happy that we had the chance to win this game. We have to keep the good mood and keep winning in order to go through the next round.”
Although Germany were up in the score through the most part of the first set, eventually they could not take advantage of Slovenia’s many unforced errors. The Germans were the first to reach set point at 24-23, but five rallies later it was their own mistake that gave the Slovenes the set at 27-25 after a seven-point contribution from Matic Vrtovec.
In the second set Slovenia continued committing a lot of errors, while Germany cut theirs in half. Tobias Krick was on fire in both spiking and blocking and scored eight times in the set to help his team dominate on the court towards the eventual 25-18.
Germany took an early 3-0 lead in the third set and never allowed the opponents to step ahead in the score. Slovenia managed to catch up and keep it tied through the middle part of the set, but in the end the Germans broke away and with two series of three consecutive points each achieved a 25-19 win, shaped up with a back-row hit by substitute Moritz Rauber for the last point.
After 9-9 in the fourth set, Germany scored six consecutive points with Johannes Tille serving. Slovenia’s late attempt at a comeback brought the gap down to three points, but it was time for the Germans to close the day. Egor Bogachev did so with a successful attack for 25-21.
Tobias Krick contributed 21 points, of which seven kill blocks, to his side’s win. Matic Vrtovec was Slovenia’s best scorer with 16 points.
Jure Okroglic, player of Slovenia: “We are really disappointed that we lost and we are going to try and train more in order to win the next match.”
Samo Miklavc, coach of Slovenia: “It was difficult for us to play so late at night and as you see we did not manage to do our best. We hope we will improve tomorrow.”
Egor Bogachev, player of Germany: “It was important to start with a win and I hope we will continue the same way.”
Johan Verstappen, coach of Germany: “Although we had difficulties in the first set, we managed to win and I am really proud of my players. Our pool is the ‘group of death’.”
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