EuroVolleyW 2023: Finns silence home crowd in Tallinn with come-from-behind win

With a record-breaking crowd in attendance at UNIBET Arena, home favourites Estonia and their neighbours from Finland delivered a highly entertaining show in Tallinn combined with the right degree of drama – but in the end it was the Finns who silenced the audience with a 3-2 come-from-behind victory (21-25, 25-20, 23-25, 25-20, 15-13) to prevent Estonia from celebrating their first historic triumph at EuroVolley. Despite the unhappy end for the home team, it was and will remain a night to remember for Estonian Volleyball and the Baltic country as a whole.  

The day the organisers had been waiting for a long time finally arrived – with almost 4,000 people coming together for the eagerly anticipated derby between Estonia and Finland. This matchup accounted for an all-time attendance record for women’s Volleyball and any other women’s sport in Estonia – with many fans from neighbouring Finland helping achieve this historic feat and the audience including even Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. The ambiance was just spine-tingling especially after a live performance of the respective national teams – which are identical when it comes to the actual musical score, but differ in their lyrics.  
 
In a truly electrifying atmosphere, and with the respective camps continuously calling out their support for ‘Eesti’ and ‘Suomi’, the two teams engaged in a very close battle – with Estonia eventually edging ahead at 21-19 following an impressive triple block. If the hosts had seemed to feel much pressure in their opening match with France, this time they did draw a lot of positive energy from the crowd instead and jubilant scenes ensued when the home side sealed the first set on a service error by the Finns (25-21). Finland responded with an impressive series of points to move the score to 13-7 in their favour and keep that margin until Estonia scored four times in a row to cut their gap to 22-19. However, this is as far as the hosts could make it – with Suvi Kokkonen playing a key role in Finland’s ability to draw the match. 

After the break, Estonia raised the level of their performance and much to the delight of the crowd, they had a small advantage after hitting the 20-point mark (21-18); Finland won a challenge to make it 21-20 and Kokkonen finished an incredibly long and spectacular rally for 21-all. A lucky ace by Netta Rekola turned the score around in favour of the Finns, but the hosts kept their composure even in such tense moments with Kätriin Põld acing for 24-23 before the crowd roared as Liis Kiviloo closed the set only a few moments later. In the fourth set, Estonia showed incredible resilience by fighting back multiple times after trailing by three up to five points but the last such break for the Finns proved decisive. Estonia had to play catch up for most of the tiebreak and fittingly top scorer Kokkonen closed the match out at 15-13 for a much-needed victory if the Finns are to remain in contention for a spot in the next round.   

Earlier in the day, even though they played with their usual high tempo and an abundancy of passion, Spain still looked tired – not only physically, but especially mentally – from their 2-3 loss at the hands of France the previous night. Slovakia did not miss the opportunity to capitalise on this opportunity, leading the way from the start of the match and cruising to a comprehensive victory in the first set (25-17). The course of the game changed in the following set, where the Slovaks made some unforced errors, leaving the door open for Spain – cheered on by their passionate fans – to regroup and put up much more of a fight. The late stages of the second set were quite dramatic, with Spain fighting back to draw level at 23-all before Slovakia managed to double their lead in the game.

The story of the third set was quite similar – with Slovakia breaking away and Spain mounting a late comeback and closing in with two straight aces by Lucia Varela, before the Slovaks restarted their march and finished the match in straight sets (25-19) to improve their win-loss record to 2-1.