Sweden
In the first semifinal, Sweden outplayed Albania in straight sets (14-25, 21-25, 21-25) and totally expectedly will fight for the gold medal and the spot in the CEV Golden European League 2019.
Isabelle Haak was the leader with 25 points followed by Diana Lundvall who scored 15 points while the new opposite of Igor Novara, Albanian Erblira Bici was the best in the opponent’s side with 18 points.
Guillermo Gallardo, coach of Sweden: “One of the main things my young team has to learn is not losing their focus. I have to help them in the moments like during the third set when we lost our eight-point advantage. We need to teach them that even big point lead doesn’t mean we have already won, we still need more points to maintain the game. Improving this aspect is a matter of being together and practicing. This team needs time as they are still unexperienced in this type of competitions. Regardless of our opponent tomorrow, the game will be tough. We are already one of the two top teams of the Silver European League and I’m looking forward to play on Sunday.”
In the second semifinal match, Austria defeated Estonia with 3-1 (21-25, 25-22, 26-24, 25-16) thanks to Srna Marković who scored 19 points.
Svetlana Ilić, coach of Austria: “We played six nice games in the League Round and all of the four teams who are here came with the same ambitions and the same chances. Both we and Estonia knew that the price of this match is very high and I think you could feel this in the first set on both sides of the net. It had probably happened a little bit more on our side, my girls were seriously nervous. If you ask what was the crucial moment of the game, I would say it was the third match. Everything worked well on the side of Estonia, but in those last minutes of the set, my players were very brave. They rook big risks and we got a payback from it. After that, we felt that we put the biggest pressure behind us and approached the fourth set and we found better service, which was the key. I am a bit emotional because I know where I started with this team and how far we have come. I am very proud of them and I can see that they used my experience in the right way, which is crucial. They wished to progress and be better, it was always a pleasure to work with them and today I can see that they deserve to play for the gold medal.”
The final is scheduled for tomorrow, June 17 at 19:00 by local time while the match for the bronze medal will be on program ay 16:00.
See schedule and results, as well as stats of CEV Silver European League.
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