08/06/2012 20:10
Bulgaria and France score convincing wins to open their EL campaign
2012 CEV Volleyball European League - Women
Varna, Bulgaria, June 8, 2012. Bulgaria and France opened their campaign in the 2012 CEV Volleyball European League – Women with a couple of wins.
France edged a very young Turkish team in the opening match played on Friday afternoon in Varna with the score of 3:1 (16-25, 25-22, 25-21, and 25-18). France experienced some problems only in the opening set, struggling in reception there, but after that they imposed their pace and stood out in all fundamentals. “We caught a bad start and made many errors in the first set but afterwards it went much better. We stabilized our defense line and since Turkey’s team was so young, it was relatively easy for us to win this match” said France’s head coach Fabrice Vial. “I am very proud of my players because they scored a good win and this is a good boost of confidence for the next stages of the competition”.
“We had many ups and downs, but in some phases we played really bad. It’s more a psychological than a technical problem. France played well with a good team work” stressed Turkey’s mentor Edman Gökhan.
The home heroines of Bulgaria needed only 70 minutes to down Switzerland in straight sets (25-17, 25-18, and 25-11). Italian-born head coach Marcello Abbondanza could even afford making many changes to his starting six so that the young players could take valuable experience from this game.
“I am very happy with this result because it was our first match in the competition and we were playing in front of our fans. The players stayed always very concentrated and coped very well with all situations” said Abbondanza (pictured) after the game.
“I congratulate Bulgaria on their good performance; they really played at a high level and deserved to win this match that clearly. I can be satisfied with our performance in defense because we could catch many balls and the girls always played with great spirits and highly motivated. We still have a long way to go before being able to compete at the level displayed by the other teams” singled out Switzerland’s head coach Svetlana Ilic.
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