Class victory: Russian men's volleyball team beat the Greeks and reached the quarter finals of the European Championship

The confident start of Russia and the wonderful hit of Greece in the playoffs

The start of the European Championship as a whole was more than successful for the Russian team. Wards of Tuomas Sammelvuo at the group stage stage won five confident victories in which they gave only two games to their rivals, and confidently reached the playoffs from first place.

The only, but quite weighty fly in the ointment for the current champions was the injury of Ilyas Kurkaev. In a match with Finland, the blocking Lokomotiv unsuccessfully collided with Dmitry Volkov and injured his leg. Volleyball player was sent to the hospital directly from the stadium. Fortunately, he avoided a turning point, but he still fell out of action before the end of the tournament.

However, even the loss of such an important volleyball player still did not exclude the Russians from the main favorites of the tournament. And in the 1/8 finals of the Greeks, the domestic squad was obliged to beat even on one leg. Firstly, for the first time in a long time, the Greeks made it to the final stage of the continental championship, which was already a huge achievement for them, and secondly, they only miraculously reached the playoffs with just one victory.

In group A, Greece, Romania and Portugal scored three points each, but the Greeks were ahead of rivals in terms of additional indicators. Moreover, they circumvented the Portuguese due to the fact that in total they lost one goal less. At the same time, in full time, the Greeks lost to their direct competitor.

One way or another, Russia was obliged to beat an opponent inferior in class, and Sammelvuo before the match tried to prevent underestimation by the wards.

“We need to serve better, play better, maintain concentration every day and not think about anything else. Our goal is to gradually add and act better every day. There will be no easy meetings ahead, regardless of who becomes our rival, ”the official website of the EKB quoted the coach as saying.

Unsure start and huge class difference

The match began for the Russian team is not too successful. The Greeks came to the floor in a good mood and managed to make a pretty good debut. Moreover, for some time they even counted.

But then the domestic team added a little and won six points in a row at the serve of Taras Butko. After that, questions about the winner of the party disappeared by themselves. At the same time, Sammelvuo took the challenge in time, which brought his wards success and helped to break away in the long run.

In the future, the Greeks tried to complicate the favorite's life, but the Russians calmly scored point by point, not seeming to be even half their capabilities. True, the presentation from the team was not going too well, but the Greeks made a huge number of mistakes in the attack and gave the opponent important points. As a result - 25:16.

The second batch was very similar to the first. Like at the start of the match, the Greeks at first tried to fight and cling and imposed on the Russians a kind of struggle. Everything changed when Ivan Yakovlev began to serve. Thanks to him, Sammelvuo's wards took eight points at once. The “Zenith” volleyball player himself caught a real courage and sometimes even played the role of a libero, pulling out incredible balls.

In addition, the Russian team finally began to work perfectly block, while the opponent he simply was absent. It is not surprising that the head coach at that moment began making substitutions and released Anton Syomyshev and Artyom Volvich to the site.

After that, the Greeks managed to stop their own free fall, and they even managed to win the first ball on the block. But this did not change the general alignment of forces - the Greeks looked extremely modest even in comparison with the rivals of Russia in the group, and in the second set they scored only 15 points.

18 points Volkova and confident delivery Mikhailov

But in the third installment, the Sammelvuo team immediately took off the bat and organized a six-point spurt at the pitch of the most experienced Maxim Mikhailov. At the same time, Dmitry Volkov “pounded” ball after ball into the opponent’s half of the court, who, with 18 points, became the most productive player in the meeting.

The Russians loosened their grip somewhat only when the score was 11: 3 in their favor. At this point, the Greeks managed to slightly reduce the backlog. Sammelvuo continued to throw reservists into the battle and entrusted playing time to Yevgeny Andreev, who had not yet entered the court at all, and to Anton Karpukhov.

The final set ended with the same score as the first - 25:16. The Russian team expectedly won an easy and confident victory and stepped into the quarter finals, where they will meet with the winner of the confrontation Slovenia - Bulgaria. However, you probably should not take seriously the results of the meeting with the Greeks, since the opponent was much weaker than the Russians. However, already in the next round they will have to make much more efforts to win.