The women’s national team took the lead twice, but Azerbaijan was the one who smiled at the end of the game and now the national team needs a clear win in tomorrow’s game against Turkey (23/8, 18:00, ERT3).

Today, the girls of Yunus Ocal have made great efforts to bring some joy to the Greeks, who are being tried again by the deadly fires, but although they reached the spring, they could not drink any water.

Although they started the game perfectly, they paid for losing the difference in sets 2 and 5 (6:2), but above all for our incredibly poor start in the 4th set, where we lost 0: 8 lost.

Now there is the game against Turkey, who are currently considered the best team in the world (they won the VNL a couple of weeks ago) and where we need the miracle of conceding to get into the top four of the table.

The match: Nervousness reigned supreme in both teams at the start of the game, with Azerbaijan leading 2-4, 3-5 and Nikologiannis’ top effort equalizing. Although we lost 7-7 to overtake, we were 7-0. 10 and at 10-13 we got an immediate response. Once again, the Azerbaijani reception was broken in Nikologianni’s serve (the change of libero didn’t help them either), and the Greek team led 14:13 and started a point-by-point battle. At 15:16, Strandzali took us to +2 (18:16) with a block and an attack, so Azerbaijan responded with an ace from Kharachenko at 19:20. Anthoulis attack and block, Strantzali attack and block brought the long-awaited 23:20 win, with our team taking the lead and finishing the set with a Nikologianni attack.

The second set started perfectly for Greece who quickly went 4-1, but with two errors (Strandzali’s missed serve, Anthoulis out attack) we erased the difference and Azerbaijan equalized 4-4. A block by Konstantinidou gave us a 9-7 lead, but that’s where the problems started in reception (10-10) and at 12-12, with two aces from Abdulazimova and the same number of blocks, the score was 12-16. The Greek team tried to come back, but at 16:19 Baka’s lost serve and poor reception reopened the gap to close the set at 19:25.

The momentum was now with Azerbaijan, who started the third set impressively (0:4), with Otsal Tsitsigiannis overtaking Anthoulis and immediately closing the gap (3:5), but 7:9 became 8:12 with another bad one Reception. At the same time, the Greek team was not good at all in block defense and Azerbaijan easily maintained the lead up to the score of 14:18.

There, the Azerbaijani’s lost serve and two poor receptions made the difference (16-17), with Rakhimova taking over and our constant mistakes (poor reception by Terzoglou, who came on instead of Lambrousi, wrong attack) the Score rose to 17 -21 and the set looked lost.

And yet Greece came back when Rakhimova gave us a gift (19:21, outside attack), Lambrousi spoiled Ruban’s welcome (20:21) and the Greek bench won the challenge 20:22 (finger contact in the block and instead of 20:23, 21). -22) to get to 21-23. Anthoulis took the switch (22-23), Strandzali caught Rakhimova on the block (23-23) and Kharacheko’s out got us to a set.

In fact, we had an immediate chance to end the game, but Strantzali cut the block at 27:27. Rakhimova didn’t complete the counterattack (excellent block work from Spanou), Anthoulis increased to 28:27 and Lambrousi’s excellent serve gave us the set.

And although one would have expected that we would go into the game with a different appearance, our start in the fourth set was a nightmare as the national team was 0-8 (!!!) behind, had a mediocre reception and bad decisions met. 4-9 (Rahimova out) created a sense of return that was quickly lost (4-11, 5-14) and essentially it was all decided at 10-16 as Anthouli lost the counterattack to further close the gap while Azerbaijan easily wins the set and sends the game into a tiebreak.

But there we started perfectly, leading 3-0 and 6-2, but an out from Strantzali and two bad receptions from Kakuratos (she came in the back zone instead of Spanou) brought the score even (6-6) . The lead was lost, missing another chance at 10-9 when Spanou failed to finish the counter for +2.

And at 11-10 it was 11-12 with a difficult attack from Rakhimova and against Aliyeva, but Spanou kept us in the game with a block in the last set (12-12). Rakhimova made it 12-13 and sent Abdulazimova on serve, Vasa’s center securing the ace and Azerbaijan having double match point. Immediately after the time-out, another poor reception from Spanou against Kharachenko ended the game…

Azerbaijan – Greece 3:2

The sentences: 22-25, 25-19, 27-29, 25-18, 15-12

*Azerbaijan’s points came from 10 aces, 76 attacks, 10 blocks and 18 errors and Greece’s points came from 5 aces, 57 attacks, 12 blocks and 29 errors.

AZERBAIJAN (Ataman Guneylig): Tuban 21 (20/44 ref, 1 ace, 33% sub – 17% excellent), Alieva 19 (17/40 ref, 2 blocks, 60% sub – 30% excellent), Abdulazimova 9 (4/8 ref., 4 aces, 1 block), Karachenko 11 (3/8 ref., 2 aces, 6 blocks), Bessman 5 (2/2 ref., 3 aces), Rakhimova 31 (30/51 ref., 1 block ) / Guluyeva (l., 32% sub. – 24% excellent), Karimova (l.), Dorosenko, Masnakova, Stepanenko.

GREECE (Younos Otsal): Anthoulis 30 (26/56 ref, 1 ace, 3 blocks), Nikologianni 8 (7/22 ref, 1 ace, 26% sub – 5% excellent), Lambrousi 9 (6/12 ref, 2 aces, – 11% excellent) / Artakianou (l, 67% sub – 33% excellent), Spanou 1 (0/7 ff., 1 block, 17% sub – 17% excellent), Terzoglou, Baka, Xanthopoulou, Tsitsigianni 3 ( 3/4 ff.), Kakurato (14% sub. – 0% excellent).

The schedule and results of the group

Thursday 17 August

• Greece-Germany 0-3 (19-25, 21-25, 27-29)

Friday 18 August

• Turkey 3-0 Sweden (25:22, 25:18, 25:13)
• Azerbaijan 3-0 Czech Republic (25:21, 25:10, 25:15)

Saturday August 19th

• Sweden-Greece 1-3 (23-25, 25-19, 25-27, 22-25)
• Azerbaijan – Germany 1-3 (13-25, 22-25, 25-12, 14-25)

Sunday 20 August

• Greece 0-3 Czech Republic (21:25, 22:25, 17:25)
• Turkey 3-0 Azerbaijan (25:13, 25:13, 25:13)

Monday 21 August

• Czech Republic – Türkiye 1-3 (23-25, 20-25, 25-20, 17-25
• Germany 1-3 Sweden (25:13, 16:25, 18:25, 18:25)

Tuesday, August 22nd

• Azerbaijan – Greece 3:2
• 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

Group C Rating

1. Türkiye 9
2. Germany 6
3. Azerbaijan 5
4. Greece 4
5. Czech Republic 3
6. Sweden 3

Photo courtesy of CEV/www.cev.eu