Bosnia and Herzegovina off to a flying start in the Qualifiers
Recap
On the first day of the action in Pool F, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Czech Republic emerged victorious after straight-sets victories vs Slovenia and Latvia, respectively.
Aiming for qualifying for a third #EuroVolleyW (after having participated in 2015 and 2019), Slovenia started on the wrong foot in Pool F as Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed a straight sets victory. In what was an opener in the May #EuroVolleyW Qualifiers campaign, both teams entered the court in Olympic Center DAUGAVPILS inspired, but the players coached by head coach Stevan Ljubičić showed greater motivation with the better performance on the serving line (14 aces) becoming the key to the success.
Slovenia v Bosnia and Herzegovina
0-3 (23 - 25, 20 - 25, 24 - 26)
Pool F
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It was a close in the first set, but Bosnia and Herzegovina were able to take the control of the play, outperforming their opponents on attack (18 winning spikes to 16 for Slovenia)
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The players around Alessandro Chiappini, who leads Slovenia since 2017, improved a lot on attack in the next set, but Bosnia and Herzegovina found the solution in these moments, pushing hard on the serve.
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In the third set, Slovenia put up a real fight and delivered some excellent performance on the block (finishing in the match with 7 blocks). However, Bosnia and Herzegovina reacted quickly and didn’t let any big surprises happen - they managed to finish successfully most of their spikes, and thus, emerged victorious.
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Edina BEGIC (BIH) topped the charts with 21 points, while for Slovenia Darja ERŽEN recorded 18 points to her name.
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Slovenia’s roster is quite different from the one of 2019, when the last edition of EuroVolleyW took place. Considered Slovenia’s best player, the opposite Iza Mlakar put an end to her career, while the recognized libero Maja Pahor had to quit playing Volleyball because of health issues. Missing are also the outside spiker Ana Marija Vovk and the middle blocker Ela Pintar (recovering from a knee surgery)
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Mirta Velikonja Grbac (born in 1998) made first appearance for Slovenia's senior national team. The other two debutants were Naja Boisa and Lorena Lorber Fijok (both born in 2003).
Stevan Ljubičić''This first game was very hard, very tough. Before the start of this tournament, we didn’t have the chance to play even one friendly game. I was pretty preoccupied to see how things will turn out for us in this game, we started good and after the first set everything was much easier for us.''
Stevan Ljubičić, head coach of BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
Alessandro Chiappini, head coach Slovenia''I am sorry for the result. I think, we had our moments during the match when we played a bit better. We are a young team, who don’t count on a lot of experience. We are learning day by day, so I prefer that we perceive today as a lesson. Today, we made some errors that we could have avoided. Congratulations to Bosnia, they showed they have experienced players who lead the team."
In the other match of the day, Czech Republic needed only 68 minutes to seize a 3-0 victory over Latvia. The players around head coach Ioannis Athanasopoulos outperformed completely their opponents and started in the competition collecting the 3 points. Even though Latvia tried to push on the serve in the beginning of the match, the Czech players quickly took control and with 14 winning spikes and 3 kill blocks opened in their favour. In the second set, nothing changed, as the Czech Republic were performing better on the attack and speeded up on block. Having lost their hope of coming back in the match, the Latvian players managed to score only 9 points in the third set, while the players coached by Anthasopoulos were enjoying the game with sharp attacks and better play on the net. Both Veronika Trnkova and Eva Hodanova of the winners' team scored 9 points each, while for Latvia Ingrida Sveigere recorded 8 to her name.
"Of course, I am not happy with the result. But I believe the final score doesn't reflect our real capabilities and what we showed."
Pavels Selivanos, head coach Latvia
"It was obvious that during the first set the girls where very nervous, but after that, we managed to get back on our feet and I think we played a little bit better than the opponent. We had the chance to use all the players and now we are going to prepare the next game."