Croatia-Israel
The last addition to this year’s edition – Croatia replaced Portugal after the latter was admitted to play the FIVB World League – did not have any problems to cruise to that speedy victory as Israel showed many problems in reception and especially in dealing with Croatia’s strong serving.
Croatia started out with a 9:3 lead in the first set and Israel could not attempt any comeback with that section of the game ending in a terrific 21-10 for the hosts. Israel stepped up in the second set, especially with good blocks, and even went to the front (12:11) before Croatia flipped the charts around, moved ahead 15:12 and finished it at 21-17. The third set was closely contested especially as the home heroes showed some problems in defense. Israel dictated the pace of the game at 10:8 before Croatia regained control of the match with their blocks and serves (19:13, 21:17).
“The match was quickly over as we needed only 60 minutes to finish it off” says Croatian middle-blocker Matija Sabljak. “Of course it is quicker if you need only 21 points to win a set. However, we still need some time to adjust to this different scoring system. Israel has got a young and inexperienced team so that we did not have any problems to claim this victory. I hope we will celebrate a similar result tomorrow as we play Turkey” he concluded.
To read more news from this competition click on World League 2013 M.
Find the full stats from this game on Statistics.
