Slovenia wins bronze medal at 2011 CEV European Volleyball League Men
Slovenia and Romania played the classification match for third place on Sunday, July 17. Both teams dropped their semi-final matches of the 2011 CEV European Volleyball League on Friday and had to settle for the bronze-medal match. The Slovenian team proved
to better in the classification match and posted a 3-0 (25-20, 25-18, and 25-22) victory over Romania.
This was Slovenia’s first ever medal at the CEV European League. On the other hand, the fourth-place finish was the best ever standing achieved by the Romanian team. Romania also had ambitions of a podium finish but the absence of skipper Bogdan Olteanue
made it quite difficult for them. The skipper was sidelined due to a recent injury.
First Set
Romania was playing without its star player and team captain Olteanue but the team made a good opening in the game. They scored an early three points, while Slovenia was yet to be seen on the board. The Romanian dominance was short-lived as Slovenia jumped
in to add quick points. They attacked with Alen Sket and pushed Romania behind at the first technical break. Romania initially trailed by two points, 6-8, but the Slovenian team kept its concentration through the rest of the set and didn’t allow Romania to
come up. The boys around Head Coach Veselin Vukovic followed the same approach and they claimed opening set with a score of 25-20.
Second Set
Romania opened the second set in the same style and put away early points. Slovenian side was aware of the retaliation from Romanian side and they played sensibly and started off defensively. Afterwards, they slightly picked up pace. The Captain of host
team, Tine Urnaut, hit some wonderful shots and put his side in the lead after the first mandatory stop. Slovenia took full control of operations in the second set and put pressure on rival side. Eventually, the guest team from Romania had to take their hands
off the ball with defeat at 18-25.
Third Set
Adrian Radu Gontariu of Romania fought for his team and scored many crucial points. However, the competition was hard as Slovenia was all up to put an end to the game in third set. Slovenians denied their opponents’ efforts and built an early lead. Furthermore,
they made good progress up until the second mandatory stop. Romania came a long way to tie the score at 16-all but Slovenia managed to cope with the challenge. Alen Pajenk and Gontariu stormed the Romanian half with ground-breaking shots and ended the third
set with a 25-18 victory.
Post-match
The Head Coach of Romania, Stelian Moculescu, accepted that Slovenia had a better team-line to win the match. He congratulated them and said they deserved the victory. His counterpart, the Head Coach of Slovenia, Veselin Vukovič, appreciated the Slovak Volleyball
Federation for the high-level organization of the tournament. Moreover, he expressed his delight wiht their first medal in the European League. Vukovic actually had planned a higher position for his side but he was satisfied with third-place finish.
The captain of Romania, Olteanu, commented, “We believed that we could win against Slovenia. We wanted to go home with the medal, but unfortunately we had two injured players. We started very well, but after that Slovenia played very good in block and defence
and we were not able to find a weapon against them”.
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