Tageblatt.lu | Volleyball | Luxembourg improves, but loses 0:3 to the strong Greeks

On Friday evening, Luxembourg clearly lost 3-0 against Austria, a game in which they had hoped to win in advance. Late on Sunday afternoon, an even stronger team, Greece, was on the program. It was immediately apparent that Braas and Co. had a lot to make up for. They approached the game with much more concentration than against Austria. The first phase of the first set was evenly matched, with both teams giving each other nothing. Then Luxembourg managed a mini-break (7:5), a second one at 10:8. Greece followed suit each time and took the lead for the first time at 11:10.

But the “Red Lions” didn’t give in. It went back and forth, sometimes one team was leading, sometimes the other. What was missing on Friday, the fighting spirit of coach Pompiliu Dascalu’s players, was awakened again. Christian Galoppo and Noah Oesch were particularly good at this point. At 16:18, Dascalu took a timeout because he wanted to prevent the opponent from breaking away. Both teams were still close as they entered money time. And the spectators felt that anything was still possible and loudly supported their team. At 22:24 Luxembourg time out. However, Markou took his chance with a block out and it was 1-0 for Greece.

Intensity in the game is high

Both coaches continued to trust their starting lineups. Luxembourg started well (3:1), but their opponents followed suit. The intensity of the game continued to increase, every ball was contested, no team was able to break away until the “Red Lions” managed a mini-break (13:11) – which they had to defend for some time. It wasn’t until 20:19 that Greece managed to take the lead for the first time. Dascalu responded with a timeout and immediately followed up with a second one. Two successful feints gave the opponent two set points. An attack by Galloppo out of bounds also caused any hope of winning the second set to wane. 25:22 for the Hellenes and that made it 2-0. Luxembourg had been able to keep up excellently for two sets, was there now a fear of a collapse?

Very tight last sentence

Dascalu brought on Filip Bilan for Oesch on the diagonal. His team still didn’t give up and continued to demand everything from their opponents. The Greeks first took the lead at 9:8. Two slight mistakes then increased the gap to three points. But they didn’t give up and came close again. The last hope was the second timeout at 18:22. This caused a small slump in the team. But once again Galloppo and Co. worked their way back (23:23). Even two breaks from Greece shouldn’t change this. Luxembourg fended off three game points and earned four set points before opposing captain Protopsaltis finished off the fifth game point with an ace. Greece won 3-0, but it took a lot of hard work. Luxembourg was able to show its true strength and was greeted with great applause by the fans.

A very satisfied coach highlighted his team’s consistently good performance in the game against the strong Greeks, but still did not understand what had happened on Friday. “The team, which is full of young players because some had to be replaced, showed all of its abilities. Of course, there are still a few mistakes made, but the players have a lot of potential, are not lazy about training and want to develop further. I’m actually not worried about the future,” said Dascalu.