Eurovolley Pool A: Victory for Bulgaria and Italy over Romania and Greece respectively

Bulgaria has scored the second victory at the European Championship. After beating Greece, they defeated Romania also in straight sets 28:26, 25:20, 25:20. Martin Atanasov led the winning side with 15 points, while Todor Skrimov had 14 and Tsvetan Sokolov 12. Razvan Mihalcea ended the match with 11 points on the other side.

Reactions:
Todor Skrimov – Bulgaria’s outside hitter
“It was a good win for us. Luckily we won that first tight set otherwise it could have ended differently. Romania was a team I did not know but they greatly surprised me, they played really well. We’ll have to make fewer mistakes against teams like Italy or France in order to win those.”

Laurentiu Lica – Romania’s captain
“When you lose two games 3-0, it’s difficult. It’s true that we were closer to win a set today, but we don’t have enough experience in the ends of sets in order to really earn something.”

In the fifth match of Pool A Greece offered a very great match made of courageous defences, good set distribution and performing attacks. Once Italy tied the match 1-1, they secured their victory. This is Italy’s second victory and Osmany Juantorena was the top scorer with 21 points. Nikos Zoupani scored 15 on the other side.

Reactions:
Georgios Petreas – Greece’s captain
“Everybody knows how strong Italy are, with their superstars, but we pulled off a good game. We took one set, and tomorrow we will play against another great team, trying to improve day after day. Hopefully we’ll win the right game to qualify for the next step.”

Ivan Zaytsev – Italy’s opposite
“The Greeks played really well, especially in defence where they put so much energy. It was a problem for us at the beginning of the match and then we found our way to solve the problem. Now, we have to think match by match and then we’ll see.”

Menelaos Kokkinakis – Greece’s libero
“It’s our first time in EuroVolley whereas you don’t even need to present Italy. So for us it was important to win this set, we gave out our passion, we stayed concentrated, but it was difficult for us to earn more than one set. We definitely enjoyed the game tonight.”

2019 CEV European Volleyball Championship, pool stage – Day 2:

POOL A (Montpellier, France)
Bulgaria – Romania 3-0 (28:26, 25:20, 25:20)
Italy – Greece 3-1 (17:25, 25:23, 25:19, 25:18)

POOL B (Brussels & Antwerp, Belgium)
Serbia – Germany 3-0 (25:21, 25:17, 25:15)
Slovakia – Spain 3-2 (25:23, 25:23, 20:25, 16:25, 18:16)
Belgium – Austria 3-0 (25:17, 25:23, 25:17)

POOL C (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
North Macedonia – Turkey 0-3 (20:25, 23:25, 13:25)
Belarus – Russia 1-3 (25:23, 17:25, 22:25, 10:25)

POOL D (Rotterdam & Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Czech Republic – Ukraine 1-3 (21:25, 19:25, 25:19, 22:25)
Estonia – Poland 1-3 (22:25, 27:25, 22:25, 17:25)
Netherlands – Montenegro 3-0 (25:13, 25:17, 25:15)

Source and Photos: CEV.