Eurovolley Pool A: Romania beat Portugal and push Greece to 1/8 finals, France won in four set vs. Italy!

By beating Portugal on Day 7 of the 2019 CEV European Volleyball Championship, Romania concluded the battle for the No.4 in Pool A (Montpellier, France), which was the last available spot for the eight-finals from this pool! They beat Portugal in four sets (25:21, 19:25, 25:18, 25:23) and this outcome was the only one that did not suite Portugal because any win, even a 3-2 loss, would launch them to the next round. As for Romania, they needed a straight-set victory to accomplish that. So, now Greece are through to the next round despite the fact that all three sides are equal in the win-loss ratio (1-4), points (3) and set ratio (5-13). However, Greece has the best point ratio of 0.8935 (386 sets won – 432 sets lost), which was crucial to push them to the top 16. In fact, Portugal had a 0.8915 point ratio (386-433). Earlier, France, Italy and Bulgaria secured a spot in the next round from this pool. Robert Adrian Aciobăniţei was top scorer for Romania with 20 points (70% attack, 16-23), while Marian Iulian Bala made 77% reception (13 digs, 38% excellent). Alexandre Ferreira played a good match for for Portugal with 27 points, but it was not enough.

Bruno Cunha – Portugal’s opposite
“I don’t know what to tell you. Our hopes were up since our yesterday, we wanted to make an image for ourselves, but it’s really hard to speak now. It was our dream, our main objective from the beginning. We’re very sad.”

Cristian Bartha – Romania’s setter
“I’m happy that we won, but obviously unhappy that we couldn’t qualify. It’s our first win in 25 years at EuroVolley. I really think we missed the qualification against Greece, we did not give our full energy at the end of sets. I also think Portugal was tired today but they played a great game.”

Georgios Petreas – Greece’s captain
“You can imagine how happy we are right now. We watched the game altogether, it was incredible.”

France keep their perfect record (5-0) as they beat Italy in four sets in a great atmosphere at Sud de France Arena of Montpellier. Losing only their first set of the tournament, Tillie’s team place first and will face Finland in the first round of the knockout phase, whereas Italy will play Turkey. Ivan Zaytsev and Osmany Juantorena were top scorers of the match with 21 and 16 points respectively, while Ngapeth scored 15 on the winning side.

2019 CEV European Volleyball Championship, pool stage – Day 7:

POOL A (Montpellier, France)
Portugal – Romania 1-3 (21:25, 25:19, 18:25, 23:25)
France – Italy 3-1 (25:22, 22:25, 25:21, 25:22)

POOL B (Brussels & Antwerp, Belgium)
Germany – Slovakia 3-0 (25:23, 30:28, 25:19)
Belgium – Serbia 0-3 (21:25, 19:25, 21:25)

POOL C (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Slovenia – Russia 0-3 (21:25, 21:25, 21:25)
Finland – Turkey 3-2 (25:20, 15:25, 18:25, 25:23, 15:12)

POOL D (Rotterdam & Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Ukraine – Estonia 3-0 (25:17, 25:15, 25:14)
Netherlands – Czech Republic 2-3 (18:25, 25:18, 20:25, 25:22, 14:16)

Source and Photos: CEV