Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 5, 2019 – Slovenia claimed a 3-1 victory over Turkey, thus winning Pool A at the 2019 FIVB Men’s Volleyball Challenger Cup in Ljubljana. In the semifinals the hosts will face Belarus and Turkey will play against Cuba.
Tine Urnaut, captain of Slovenia: “This match was the first serious game of the tournament for us. Turkey played great defence in the first set and we had some troubles with side-out, despite good reception. Our side-out was not as good as it should be and that was the main reason we dropped the first set. Afterwards we improved our side-out, started to play smarter. We improved our service, making it more difficult for our opponent to play.”
Alberto Giuliani, head coach of Slovenia: "It was a strange match. We started the first set not feeling comfortable. We played well in block and defence, we missed a few points to close the first set in our favour. Later, we played very well. Both teams made many changes in line-ups thinking about tomorrow."
Arslan Eksi, captain of Turkey: "Our strategy was to play the first two sets with our starting six to save energy for tomorrow. We didn't calculate who will be our opponent, now we know it's Cuba and we are focusing on this game."
Nedim Ozbey, head coach of Turkey: "I'm not happy about the result. We have some injured players that influenced the level of our game. We knew that we were qualified to the semifinals, we lost this game, but it's already in the past, ahead of us is the semifinal against Cuba, which is our priority."