Serbia defeats Argentina in Pool F match: FIVB Men´s Junior World Championship
One of the last matches of the second round of the FIVB Men´s Junior World Championship took place between Serbia and Argentina on the 7th of August. The Pool F match was being held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The resulting competition was thrilling
and exciting to watch with a surprising outcome as the Serbians were able to hand out a 3-2 defeat to the Argentineans who had already qualified for the semifinals. However, the fate of the Serbian team depends on the result of the match between India and
Brazil.
The first set of the match was lost by the Serbians after a tight struggle that reached the final stages. However, the Serbians rallied together for an impressive second set win. The third set of the game was also lost by the Serbians but a two set deficit
forced Serbia to win the fourth set by a comfortable margin. The fifth set was tight at the beginning but eventually the Serbians prevailed in sealing the deal at the following final set scores: 24-26, 25-18, 20-25, 25-10 and 15-9.
The Serbian coach, Milan Zarkovic, made the following comments at the press conference after his team had won the match: “We were not precise in the deciding moments, especially in the first set. Argentina pressed us a lot and our top scorers committed unusual
mistakes.”
On the other hand, the Argentinean coach, Juan Manuel Cichello, expressed himself in the following words: “Serbia has a very good team and two great players: Atanasijevic and Kovacevic. We managed to stop them in the first set. I believe that when we won
two sets and assured our qualification, the team lost its focus and we ended the match playing really bad.”
The Serbians were leading at 13-11 in the first set of the match but Argentina was able to close in the gap at 15-13. The match reached a tie at 20-20 and then later at 23-23 but the spike from Nicolas Mendez got Argentina a win at 26-24.
The second set again saw a Serbian lead at 8-5 which they were able to take to 15-10. Despite the efforts of the Argentinean coach to shift the momentum by making substitutions, the Serbians prevailed in bagging a win at 25-18.
Argentina took the lead in the third set at 4-1 but Serbia tied the score before Argentina could extend the advantage. However, as the set reached its middle stages, Argentina was in the lead at 16-13. The Serbians could not stop Argentina from securing
the third set at 25-20.
The Serbians commanded the fourth set of the game from the start to the end which took a short time to reach its close at 25-10. Likewise, the fifth set of the game also favoured the Serbians as they bagged it at 15-9.
The top scorer from the Serbian side was Aleksandar Atanasijevic who tallied a total of 25 points in the match. On the other hand, the Argentinean player, Ivan Castellani, kept the pressure on the Serbians by scoring 18 points.
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