Germany – Russia
In the first set, the German team dominated in attack and caused the Russians a lot of trouble. It was Jochen Schöps who scored six points and took the German advantage to 8-6 and wrapped it up to win the set 25-21.
In the second set, the 2,600 spectators in the Fraport Arena saw a fantastic match, as the Russian players appeared powerless and had big problems to keep pace with Germany. As a result of this the German players took a three point advantage (16-13) and made their second set win (25-18).
In the third set, the Russian team had to increase their performance to compete with the German team. Russia fought hard and leveled the score to 16-14 before Germany ran up the score to 20-21, with a spike killed by Marcus Böhme. In the end, the Russian team used their experience and took the third set by defeat the Germans with 25-22.
After a confusing start with a red card for Spiridonov in the fourth set, the Russian players lead 10-5. Team Germany had problems receiving the strong winning spikes by Pavlov and made a couple of mistakes. Russia easily dominated the heat and increased their lead to 19-10. It was only a matter of time until they decided the set to win (25-15).
Russia also got to the front in the last set (4-1). Germany tried to come back (4-5) but the Russian team controlled the tiebreak and celebrated their victory over a strong German team. In the end, it was not enough to beat the 2012 Olympic Champion (15-7).
With the defeat, the Russian team is on the road to the final round in Argentina, especially with another win tomorrow.
Head Coach Vital Heynen set up the same team as its previous match against Serbia. After the injury of Björn Höhne, Tom Strochbach was the only back up for Team Germany. Ferdinand Tille, Christian Fromm, Denys Kaliberda, Marcus Böhme, Lukas Kampa and Philipp Collin were amongst the starting six. On the other side, Dmitriy Muserskiy the 2,18 “giant” gave his comeback for the Russian team.
To read more news from this competition click on World League 2013 M.
