Eurovolley Pool C: North Macedonia shock Slovenia and Gjorgiev shines again. Turkey-Belarus 3-1

North Macedonia made a true stunt in Pool C! The EuroVolley debutants silenced about 7,000 spectators at Dvorana Center Stožice in Ljubljana by beating one of the co-hosts and huge favorites Slovenia, who was an unbeaten side until today, in four sets! Nikola Gjorgiev made another amazing display. He was superlative against Belarus, yesterday, while today he scored 24 points for North Macedonia. Risto Nikolov set up 4 winning blocks. Alen Pajenk scores 19 points (79% attack, 11/14) for Slovenia, while Žiga Štern made 72% reception (18 digs, 28% excellent).

Darko Angelovski – libero (MKD):
“I am satisfied with the team, we played really manly. It was a hard day. Yesterday the whole team went to sleep at four or five in the morning. I have never seen stronger servers. We love our country too much, so we gave our maximum to represent it. We got new three points, which is unbelievable. We hope to advance and go to France.”

Aleksandar Ljaftov – outside-spiker (MKD):
“Many have written us off, that we came here accidentally as outsiders. We have proved that we are not. We opened the championship badly, but it is normal – it is our first EuroVolley and we are euphoric. We did not have enough strength, we played a bit stiff. In the match with Belarus we showed we can play against other teams here. Our team-play, which is our trademark, showed we deserve some luck and here it is. We managed to do what we wanted.”

Alen Pajenk – middle-blocker (SLO):
“Congratulations to North Macedonia, they fougt really well. Tomorrow is a new day and a new game for us. We have to recover and concentrate, as we are expecting even tougher match against Russia, but I hope we will avenge two losses from 2017.”

Jan Kozamernik – middle-blocker (SLO):
“Our heads were not in the right place today, our minds were at the game with Russia I think. We though it’s going to be an easy quest against North Macedonia, but obviously that wasn’t the case. You have to respect every oponnent. We knew they wouldl be motivated after yesterdays victory and that proved to be the case. Our blocking was loose, we did not push on the serve as we should and the result is here. Tomorrow we face Russia and we will have to show proper Volleyball on our side again.”

With a super performance of Adis Lagumdzija, Turkey prevail against Belarus in four sets. Turkish opposite scored 29 points, including 2 winning blocks and 3 aces. Artur Udrys scored 21 for Belarus.

2019 CEV European Volleyball Championhip, pool stage – Day 6:

POOL A (Montpellier, France)
Greece – Portugal 1-3 (25:19, 21:25, 23:25, 17:25)
Italy – Bulgaria 3-1 (22:25, 25:23, 25:21, 25:17)

POOL B (Brussels & Antwerp, Belgium)
Austria – Spain 2-3 (23:25, 28:26, 23:25, 25:23, 11:15)
Slovakia – Belgium 0-3 (23:25, 20:25, 15:25)

POOL C (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Slovenia – North Macedonia 1-3 (24:26, 28:30, 25:19, 24:26)
Turkey – Belarus 3-1 (25:21, 26:24, 20:25, 25:19)

POOL D (Rotterdam & Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Montenegro – Poland 0-3 (10:25, 17:25, 19:25)
Estonia – Netherlands 1-3 (25:22, 19:25, 19:25, 20:25)

Source and photos: CEV.