Even in the tiebreak, the Men’s Volleyball National defeated Portugal 3-2 sets in their second group match of the European Championship held in Tel Aviv and, with a win and a loss by the same score, they have good hopes of qualifying, ahead of the match against Turkey on Saturday.
Dante Bonifande’s players corrected the mistakes in service, reception and defense after the first two sets and “turned around” the match against a team that was much better than expected.
The Greek team did not start well in the first set and saw the Portuguese maintain a solid lead. In 8-13 it became 21-20, but the Iberians with Marques brought it 25-22.
In the second set, Portugal started to press Raptis and Protopsaltis hard and caused problems in the Greek reception and halfway through the set Portugal got to 16-12, led by Pinto against Djuric and Petraea, so we got to 25-19.
At the start of the third set, Dante Bonifande’s changes and concentration helped Koumendakis and Mouchlia to give the lead to the National team. Greece’s block started to perform better on Pinto, while Tavares was also injured. Greece reached 24-20 and finally 25-20.
In the fourth set, Koumendakis gave valuable help at the beginning and Mouchlias made a difference in the attack, while the Greek serve also improved. Raptis stepped up his performance on the block and we got to 22-13 and 25-16 for the tiebreaker.
There, the two teams went “hand to hand” with neither able to escape with more than a point until 5-7, where Petraeus and Mouchlias blocked to give Greece the lead. The extra effort of Kokkinakis and the point of Petrea brought the score to 8-6. Galiotos was helping with the organization and we reached 15-12 and victory.
The sets: 25-22, 25-19, 20-25, 16-25, 12-15
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