The teams that celebrated victorious on Friday’s first day of CEV Volleyball European Silver League 2021 men’s action did it again on Saturday. Denmark and North Macedonia improved to 2-0 in Pool A, after defeating Cyprus and Israel, respectively, while Hungary and Croatia overcame the resistance of Luxembourg and Austria in Pool B.
DENMARK vs CYPRUS 3-0 (25-23, 25-22, 25-20)
Pool A
Denmark claimed their second win in the pool, this time a straight-setter against Cyprus, leaving the opponents still winless in the competition. While Cyprus’s offence did quite well in the match, what made the difference in favour of Denmark were six serving points they hammered as well as the more unforced errors the guys from the eastern Mediterranean committed. Denmark’s outside hitter Tobias Hougs Kjaer scored the match high of 19 points, while his teammate Mads Kyed Jensen impressed with four aces towards a total of 16 points. Sotiris Siapanis was Cyprus’s top scorer on 14 points.
“It’s always difficult to play a team like Cyprus, because they have some good attackers on the outside and they play well in the middle. There was a little bit of mess in our game, but when we cleaned it up, it looked OK and the result was 3-0. Against North Macedonia we need to play better than we did in the last two days.”
Kristian Knudsen
Head coach of Denmark
ISRAEL vs NORTH MACEDONIA 1-3 (25-21, 22-25, 23-25, 29-31)
Pool A
Hosts North Macedonia celebrated their second win in Strumica as they came back from a set down to manage a 3-1 victory over Israel. The squad from the eastern Mediterranean coast have yet to win a game in the pool. A couple of aces helped Israel win the first set, but then the Macedonians improved their own serving, as well as the blocking to claim the next three sets and the match win. Nikola Gjorgiev contributed 23 points for the winners, as many as Tamir Hershko scored for Israel as the two topped the match charts. Genadi Sokolov impressed with six kill blocks for the visiting side.
“It was a tough match. We are tired because we’ve been training to prepare our best for the Final Four, but we gave our maximum today. It’s important that we won today. We hope that our form will improve from match to match and we’ll be prepared for the Final Four tournament here, in Strumica.”
Vlado Milev
Outside hitter of North Macedonia
HUNGARY vs LUXEMBOURG 3-0 (25-16, 25-23, 25-19)
Pool B
Hungary followed up on Friday’s five-set win over Austria with an emphatic shutout of Luxembourg on Saturday. The Hungarians took advantage of Luxembourg’s unforced mistakes to dominate throughout the match and cruise to a straight-set victory. Marcell Pesti and Kristof Horvath shared the best scorer honours on Hungary’s side with 13 points apiece, while Luxembourg’s Mateja Gajin delivered the match high of 14 points.
“We played very consistently today, our side-out was much better than yesterday against Austria. We achieved our goal and we will see what is possible against Croatia tomorrow.”
Robert Koch
Head coach of Hungary
“We were clearly the underdogs, but we fought well. It was a significant improvement from the previous games and we are looking forward to the next matches.”
Pompiliu Dascalu
Head coach of Luxembourg
CROATIA vs AUSTRIA 3-2 (23-25, 25-21, 25-16, 20-25, 15-10)
Pool B
After a five-set battle with Austria, Croatia took their second victory in the pool. The host team have suffered back-to-back tie-breaker defeats since the event in Amstetten started. Displaying some high-quality blocking skills throughout the match, the Croatians came back to win two sets in a row after losing the first one, only to allow the Austrians to level the game and push it to a deciding set. With Marko Sedlacek spearheading the Croatian offence, the visiting side outplayed the opponent in the tie-breaker. Sedlacek, who was not among the starters, but came in during the first set, and his teammate Tomislav Mitrasinovic shared the top scorer honours of the match with 21 points each. Johannes Kratz produced 20 for the home team.
“We have some new players compared to the European Championship qualifiers earlier this month, so the time for preparation was short. It was a tough fight today. Austria played well. We are happy that we were able to prevail in the end!”
Emanuele Zanini
Head coach of Croatia
“We weren’t good in the fifth set at the beginning. Then it’s hard to come back against teams like that. We need three points on Sunday, and then we’ll fly to Luxembourg to win at least two games. We need more consistency in the game.”
Radovan Gacic
Head coach of Austria
