EuroVolleyW 2023: Eight-Finals in Firenze, The Netherlands-Switzerland and Bulgaria-Slovakia

After yesterday's amazing Volleyball night, another exciting night of Eight-Finals will take place at Palazzo Wanny in Firenze, with the challenges between The Netherlands and Switzerland, and Bulgaria versus Slovakia

It was a big show last night at Palazzo Wanny in Firenze, with the first two games of EuroVolley 2023 Eight-Finals.

A good win for France over Romania in first game, and an uncontested win for defending champs home team Italy over Spain, so Les Bleus and Azzurre clinched a Quarter-Finals’ spot for the day after tomorrow at Palazzo Wanny, where they will face each other in a classic challenge between these two national teams.

Tonight’s games will be The Netherlands-Switzerland at 18 and Bulgaria-Slovakia at 21, two other interesting Eight-Finals.

The Netherlands and Switzerland have faced each other two times before at the European Championships, The Netherlands won both matches.
It’s curious that at the European Championships in 1967, The Netherlands won 3-0 in the group phase against Switzerland, only conceding eight points in the entire match (15-1, 15-5, 15-2), while in 1971, they faced each other in the consolation round for 7th to 12th place, and The Netherlands won 3-0 again.
The Oranjes are coming from a good Pool D, where they have won all five matches at only dropping one set against France.

On the other hand Switzerland will play their first-ever knockout match at the European Championships in history, their best result at the European Championships was a 12th place in 1971.
Maja Storck (93 points) is Switzerland's leading points scorer at EuroVolley 2023 (Final Round). Storck was also team's top scorer in 2021 with 61 points.

The second Eight-Final of the night will be Bulgaria-Slovakia, with the two teams who will face each other for the first time at the European Championships, they have also never met in a major world level tournament (Olympic Games, World
Championship, World Cup, Grand Champions Cup, World Grand Prix, Nations League).

Only Poland (206) have played more matches at the European Championships than Bulgaria (192), while The Netherlands have also played 192. At the last ten editions of the European Championships, Bulgaria recorded three top eight finishes:
seventh in 2003, eighth in 2009 and 2019.
In Pool B Bulgaria won four of their five group phase matches, losing only by Italy finishing in second place. In the four wins Radostina Marinova was Bulgaria’s top scorer in all of those victories. Marinova has scored 93 points in the Final Round at EuroVolley 2023. Two years ago Emiliya Dimitrova was Bulgaria's top scorer on 92 points.

On the other side of the net Slovakia will play their second knockout match at the European Championships, after a 0-3 defeat against Italy in the Eight-Finals in 2019.

Slovakia's best result at a European Championships was a 12th place in 2003 and in 2019.

Tonight’s game will be a great opportunity for Michal Masek’s team to write the history of Slovakian Volleball.

The winners of these two games will face each other in Quarterfinals at Palazzo Wanny in Firenze next 29th August. The other Quarterfinal will be Italy-France.

Day by day the Volleyball show of EuroVolley 2023 is stepping up, great challenges and highest level of performances.