Macedonian M NT
Macedonia downed by far the worst national team in the pool stage, Azerbaijan, 3-0 (25-20, 25-19, 25-21) in penultimate round of Pool A (5th round of Week 2) in Tirana, Albania, to advance to the semifinals of the tournament as pool leaders, joining Ukraine and F4 hosts Denmark, who did the same earlier in Pool B, in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, as first-placed and second-placed, respectively. The Macedonians achieved this highly important win without their best player Nikola Gjorgiev, who remained on the bench the whole time, since there was no need for him to step in. The receiver Marjan Urdov topped Macedonian scorers with 14 points. Dmitriy Obodnikov collected 10 for Azerbaijan.
Since Sweden beat Albania 3-1 in Pool A, the things have gotten complicated in regard to the last participant of the Final Four as both teams have a chance to grab their F4 spot in the last round and both need to win their matches against Azerbaijan and Macedonia, respectively.
In the absence of the opposite Marcus Nilsson, a new member of the Russian Zenit Sankt Peterburg (missed the entire 2017 European League pool stage), Sweden was pushed in the tournament by the player that found his place in the Top 15 best scorers in European leagues last season, Team Lakkapää receiver Fredrik Gustavsson. So it was against Albanians as he scored 21 points. Anton Qafarena made 22 for Pool A – Week 2 hosts.
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