National men’s volleyball is ready to qualify for the final phase of the European Championship for the third time in a row. The “Blue and Whites” will be in Norway from Monday (1 August), where they will meet the country’s national team on Wednesday, 3 August in the premiere of the 5th qualifying group (7 p.m., COSMOTE SPORT 7).

The men’s national team arrived in the Norwegian city of Volda late Monday afternoon and trained at the Sparebank1 Arena on Tuesday night, where they will play their first match en route to a ticket to the finals of Eurovolley.

Of the 7 qualification groups, 4 have 4 countries each and 3 have 3 countries. The top 7 countries of each group and the top 5 runners-up will qualify for the 2023 European Men’s Championship Final.

“The preparation is complete and after five friendlies we are all ready for the European Championship qualification. Our goal is of course to qualify for the Eurovolley final and the start is in Norway. We don’t know much about our first opponent, we had the opportunity to watch the three friendlies they played against Latvia on video, which helped us in our study of Norway. We need to be focused because Norway know we’re at a higher level and they’ll play freely at home too. We know how we have to approach the game, my players know what they have to do and we’re ready to fight,” said national coach Dante Bonifande.

For his part, national team captain Giorgos Petraes stressed: “We are certainly more ready and complete compared to the Mediterranean Games. We have a fairly young team that had to play the friendlies against Tunisia and Belgium in Greece to give us more homogeneity and rhythm. The official ones are the ones we need to be ready for. Norway is a side that can be said to be below us, they have players who play either in some good leagues or at American universities. It’s definitely a very important game for us, it’s a first and there are always surprises, especially since we have new children and we’re playing away. We have to see it as a final to get the result we want.”

Italy coach Dante Bonifante and his colleagues have selected the following athletes for the game against Norway:

• passers-by: Markos Galiotos, Stavros Kasampalis.
• extremes: Raphael Koumentakis, Charalambos Andreopoulos, Thanasis Protopsaltis, Spyros Hakas.
• Central: George Petreas, George Papalexiou, Demosthenes Linardos, Thodoris Voulkidis.
• diagonals: Giorgos Tzioumakas, Dimitris Mouchlias.
• Libero: Menelaus Kokkinakis, Aris Chandrinos.

The mission is completed by Dante Bonifande’s direct collaborators, Samuele Papi and Costas Christofidelis, statistician Alexandros Laios, physiotherapist James Neophytos and team manager Marios Giurdas.

The complete program of the 5th qualifying group (Greek time)

Wednesday, 08/03/2022

• Volda, 19:00: Norway – Greece
• Osijek, 8 p.m.: Croatia – Cyprus

Saturday, 08/06/2022

• Nicosia, 8pm: Cyprus v Norway

Sunday, August 7th, 2022

• DAK Glyfada, 8:30 p.m.: Greece – Croatia

Wednesday, 08.10.2022

• Osijek, 8 p.m.: Croatia – Norway
• DAK Glyfada, 20:30: Greece – Cyprus

Saturday, 08/13/2022

• Nicosia, 20:00: Cyprus v Greece

Sunday, 08/14/2022

• Volda, 5 p.m.: Norway – Croatia

Wednesday, 08/17/2022

• Volda, 7 p.m.: Norway – Cyprus
• Osijek, 8:00 p.m.: Croatia – Greece

Saturday, 08/20/2022

• Nicosia, 8 p.m.: Cyprus – Croatia

Sunday, August 21, 2022

• DAK Glyfada, 20:30: Greece – Norway