The national team enters the battle of European volleyball, facing Germany

The time has come for the first serve in group 3 of the European Women’s Volleyball Championship and, as in 2019 and 2021, the national team will meet the hosts in the premiere, this time Germany (21:00, ERT3).

In 2019 we started with Turkey (loss 3-0 in Ankara), in 2021 with Bulgaria (loss 3-0 in Plovdiv and now in Dusseldorf against Germany by Vital Heinen).

The Belgian coach has been in Germany’s technical lead since last year, finished 7th in the Volley Nations League this year and had his team’s qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games as a major goal.

“That is our main goal and Eurovolleyball, where for the first time we want our athletes to feel like they are playing at home and have the world by their side. Of course we want to win games.”said Heinen in the interview with volleyball.gr, who described Greece as a team “with a lot of potential and very interesting athletes” and particularly mentioned Martha Anthoulis.

Germany will have home advantage (the game is almost a sell-out), although there will also be many Greeks on the field, with Yunus Ocal at his side announcing for tomorrow’s game: “Germany are an experienced side and they have one player (Ortmann) who can change the course of a game, but we have our plan to deal with her. Personally I’m not afraid of Germany and in general I’m not afraid of the names.” … It’s a game and we’re going to play and do what we plan to do. The pressure is not on us, but on Germany. They have big goals and home field advantage.”

However, in addition to the home game, Germany also has the history, because we have only won once in 11 games. The goal we scored on 06/13/2014 in Larissa for Europa League (we won 3-1 with 22 points from Kiosi and 16 from Aliki Konstantinidou, while Lambrousi and Strandzali were among the top scorers, the latter being a substitute) .

The national team’s squad of 14 consists of:

• passers-by: Lamprini Konstantinidou, Panagiota Xanthopoulou
• Diagonal: Martha Anthoulis, Maria Tsitsigianni
• extremes: Olga Strandzali, Anna Spanou, Asimina Nikologianni, and Elena Baka
• Central: Gina Lambrousi, Anna Kalandatze, Aristea Todai, and Kiki Terzoglou
• Libero: Marialena Artakianou, Xenia Kakouratou

The women’s Eurovolley will take place from August 17, 2023 to September 3, 2023 with the host countries Belgium, Germany, Italy and Estonia.

The groups of the European

• 1st group (Belgium, Ghent): Belgium, Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary
• 2nd group (Italy, Verona, Monza and Turin): Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia, Switzerland
• 3rd group (Germany, Dusseldorf): Germany, Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Czech Republic, Sweden, Hellas.
• 4th group (Estonia, Tallinn): Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, France, Slovakia, Spain.

The national team program

Thursday 17 August

• 21:00 (ERT-3), Greece-Germany

Friday 18 August

• 18:00, Türkiye-Sweden
• 21:00, Azerbaijan-Czech Republic

Saturday August 19th

• 18:00 (ERT-3), Sweden-Greece
• 21:00, Azerbaijan-Germany

Sunday 20 August

• 18:00 (ERT-3), Greece-Czech Republic
• 21:00, Türkiye-Azerbaijan

Monday 21 August

• 18:00, Czech Republic-Türkiye
• 21:00, Germany-Sweden

Tuesday, August 22nd

• 18:00 (ERT-3), Azerbaijan-Greece
• 21:00, Germany-Czech Republic

Wednesday 23 August

• 18:00 (ERT-3), Greece-Türkiye
• 21:00, Sweden-Azerbaijan

Thursday, August 24th

• 18:00, Czech Republic-Sweden
• 21:00, Türkiye-Germany

*The first 4 teams in the standings qualify for the next phase