The national team from Belgium suffered a 1:3 defeat in the first friendly match of both teams as part of the preparation for the European Championship qualification.

Dante Bonifande started the game with the formation he set up in last week’s game against Tunisia (Galiotos, Mouchlias, Protopsaltis, Koumentakis, Petreas, Linardos, Kokkinakis), but midway through the second set he started making changes.

The Greek team started the game very well with a quick 4-1 and maintained +3 until the 7-4, but from that point on the Belgian’s serve started to cause problems at our reception when the result was 8-9 and 11-12 became 11-14. The national team’s response came with a 5-0 run as we made some terrible defences, but 18-16 became 18-20 with a Mouchlia block and another ace. Linardros rebalanced the game with his own ace (22-22), but at 23-24 the Belgians ended the set with a block against protopsaltis.

The second set was a different story as, at 4-4 with their own errors in attack, the Belgians were able to pull away 4-8 and Bonifande was 6-11-8-14 to have overtaken Tziumaka, Andreopoulos and Voulkidis in the game. The changes came as we reduced to 13-15 with a serve from Voulkidis and counterattacks from Tziumakas to make a 16-16 draw with a block from Petreas. The Belgians took the change, the national team got stuck at 16-19 in rotation 1, but didn’t give up the game and reduced the opponents’ mistakes to one point (19-20) and equalized 24-24 In the final, the details were not on our side as the Belgian serve found the net at 25:26, confusing the Greek receiver to end the second set as well.

We had a different scenario in the third set as Giumaka’s serves let us escape 14-9 (from 8-9), but not only did we quickly lose the lead (14-12, 15-14) but we also found ourselves back in goal with an outside attack by Voulkidis (21:22). But he himself put us ahead with an ace (24-23) and in the end we won the set without a Belgian.

The episode was uneventful as we quickly fell behind in the fourth set going from 6-9 to 6-14 without ever being able to get close to the Belgians who easily went 1-3.

Today (Friday 29/7, 18:00 CEST) the two sides meet again in the second and final friendly (admission free) at the Glyfada Stadium, which will be streamed live from www.volleyball.gr.

Greece – Belgium 1-3

The sentences: 23-25, 24-26, 26-24, 14-25 in 103′

*Greece’s points come from 4 aces, 50 attacks, 12 blocks and 22 errors and Belgium’s from 7 aces, 54 attacks, 7 blocks and 33 errors.

GREECE (Dante Bonifande): Petreas 8 (6/13 ref., 2 blocks), Koumendakis 3 (3/6 ref., 67% sub. – 40% excellent), Galiotos (0/2 ref.), Mouchlias 3 (3/7 ref.) – 14% excellent), Markou, Gioumakas 10 (7/24 ff., 1 ace, 2 blocks), Kasampalis 1 (1/1 ff.), Voulkidis 6 (4/6 ff., 1 ace, 1 block) , Andreopoulos 12 (10/17 ff., 2 blocks, 68% sub. – 26% excellent).

BELGIUM (Emanuele Zanini): D’Herr 4 (4/6 ff.), Van Hoywegen 1 (1/1 ff.), Peters 7 (7/13 ff., 69% sub – 44% excellent), Kidd 4 (2/4 ff., 1 ace, 1 block), Riggers 28 (21/43ff., 5 aces, 2 blocks), Leka 8 (5/20ff., 1 ace, 2 blocks, 71% sub – 38% excellent) / Perin ( l, 73% ref. – 40% excellent), Desmet 3 (3/5 ref.), Theiss 5 (3/3 ref., 2 blocks), Van De Velde 7 (7/13 ref., 71% ref. .- 29% Excellent), McCluskey.