Luxembourg, March 4, 2020. Lokomotiv Novosibirsk and Galatasaray HDI Istanbul advanced to the semifinal stage of the men’s CEV Volleyball Cup 2020. The team from Siberia won in straight sets at Lindemans Aalst to set up an all-Russian semifinal clash with Zenit Saint Petersburg, while Galatasaray emerged victorious from the all-Turkish quarterfinal series with Arkas Izmir.
Before Wednesday’s game in Izmir, both teams took a family photo with the Turkish flag, thus celebrating that at least one of them will represent the country among the best four of the tournament. Having won the first match at home in four sets, Galatasaray secured their spot in the semifinals as soon as they claimed the first two sets of the return leg, but went on to take the victory in a hard-fought tie-break - 3-2 (25-19, 25-21, 14-25, 23-25, 19-17). Ex-Arkas player Burutay Subasi’s powerful serves and merciless spikes made the difference in the first two sets, which stamped Galatasaray’s ticket to the semis. After that, both coaches gave some of their young players the chance to collect European Cup experience and they made the most of this opportunity. Arkas dominated the next two sets to prompt a tie-breaker. The fifth set was very competitive and went deep into overtime. The home team denied three opponent match points, but on the fourth the game came to an end with a victory for Galatasaray. Arkas’s Yigit Gulmezoglu was the best scorer of the match with 19 points to his name. Burutay Subasi (pictured above) contributed 15 to Galatasaray’s success.
Glenn Hoag, head coach of Arkas Izmir: "Galatasaray played a really good match. The serve and block-defence errors we made cost us a lot. We have to work more to develop our game. We congratulate our opponent! They deserved to qualify to the semifinals."
Nedim Ozbey, head coach of Galatasaray HDI Istanbul: "It is a big pride for us to see two Turkish flags hanging here. We would like to thank Arkas for their hospitality and friendship. We played well and deserved to win. We are very happy to win against a strong team like Arkas. We continued to play with our young players and managed to win the tie-break with their help. I would like to thank both teams’ fans for the great atmosphere."
The second-leg game between Italy’s Leo Shoes Modena and France’s GFC Ajaccio, which was also supposed to be played on Wednesday in Modena and determine the semifinal opponent of Galatasaray, has been postponed to a date yet to be determined.
Lokomotiv Novosibirsk delivered a second straight-set victory over Lindemans Aalst. This time in Belgium, the Russian stronghold mastered a 3-0 (25-12, 25-19, 25-23) win over the hosts to pass through this quarterfinal series without dropping a single set. Lokomotiv outplayed their opponents on all counts (but reception), clearly dominating the first two sets and taking a narrow win in the hard-fought third. Konstantin Bakun, who joined the match for the first two sets only, contributed 13 points (including three aces) to his squad’s victory. Lindemans’s Polish outside spiker Jakub Rybicki joined him on top of the scorers’ chart, also on 13 points.
Geert Walravens, assistant coach of Lindemans Aalst: “We did well in Europe this season, but we met a really strong opponent in the quarterfinals. Now we focus on Belgian competition.”
Roman Martynyuk, libero of Lokomotiv Novosibirsk: “We are really happy to qualify for the semifinals! We keep working hard to perform on several fronts this season.”
Lokomotiv Novosibirsk in attack
The semifinals in the men’s CEV Cup should be played on March 18 and 25. Lokomotiv will welcome Zenit to Novosibirsk for the first game and travel to Saint Petersburg for the second, while Galatasaray are due to host their opponent in the first leg in Turkey.
For more info, go to the CEV Cup 2020 section.