Slovenia
“We made a lot of mistakes today but our service was good” said Najdic in the end. “This is a very tough tournament and we need to fully concentrate on our last match to try to pocket a direct pass to the final round of the European Championship in Turkey”.
“If yesterday we had played our best game while beating Belgium, I think today’s was the worst since the start of the tournament” stated Spain’s head coach Jose Miguel Serrato.
The daily program in Nova Gorica had started with Croatia beating Ukraine 3:1 (16-25, 25-20, 27-25, and 25-18). Supported by a group of fans, the Croatian girls looked very motivated while their opponents – after losing yesterday to Slovenia at the end of a very long game – were no longer that fresh.
“Our girls may recall the weather conditions in the month of April; sometimes it is sunny, then it turns into rain. That’s what we do at the moment: we have many ups and downs but I am happy with the result of today’s match” joked Croatia’s mentor Nino Matjacic.
The final match of the day was claimed by Belgium that with a 3:1 win over Sweden (25-19, 25-10, 22-25, and 25-15) is ranked second there in Nova Gorica. Sweden fought back in set 3 after clearly losing the first and second section of the game but could not stop the Belgian march.
“We felt some pressure as we desperately needed to win today and it was not easy after Sweden had played an excellent match on Friday” singled out Belgium’s head coach Julien Van de Vyver.
“I am proud of my players because today they controlled the game and sailed convincingly to the win”.
