CZECH REPUBLIC AND RUSSIA REACH FINAL

European League 2004

Opava, Czech Republic, July 10, 2004. The Czech Republic and Russia are the two finalists of the European League after winning their semi-finals today in Opava. The Czech home team caused a surprise by defeating the winner of preliminary Pool 2, the Netherlands, in a straight-set victory. In the other semi-final Russia, the favourite for the Olympic Gold this summer in Athens, defeated Germany with the same score.

The Czechs satisfied approximately 2,000 fans today in Opava by defeating the Netherlands in three straight sets. After gaining the first point, thus taking the immediate lead, the home crowd favourite continued to hold the advantage. Although the Dutch were the clear favourites to win this match, they struggled to find the appropriate methods to resist their strong opponents. As a result, the Czech Republic claimed victory in just over an hour of play and left the Netherlands, one of the qualified European teams for the Olympic Games, completely empty-handed.
“We are very happy to have won against the Netherlands, one of the world’s best teams”, Czech coach Pavel Rerabek said. “Knowing that we had to stop the lateral attacks of Reinder Nummerdor and Guido Görtzen my team did exactly what had to be done, with concentrated play and a lot of passion.” Conversely, concentration seemed to be missing on the Dutch side. Committing a total of 29 unforced errors the Dutch clearly exceeded the Czechs’ total error ratio of 20. “We came here to win, but the team wasn't in good shape”, stated Dutch head coach Bert Goedkoop disappointingly. “Moreover, the Czech Republic played extremely well and hardly gave us a chance to fight back.”
The best scorer of the match was Dutch opposite attacker Richard Schuil with 12 points whilst Martin Lebl from the Czech Republic booked 11 points.

In tomorrow’s final the Czech Republic will face Russia who lined-up the complete Olympic selection against Germany in the succeeding semi-final match. With only the absence of coach Gennady Shipulin, who stayed in Russia due to illness, the Russian Rockets were never seriously in danger, striving through to the final in a 3:0-victory.
During the first set the sides were of equal standard until the Russians started to serve more powerful, not allowing Germany back into the game. With a handful of aces in the middle of the second set Russian spiker Sergey Tetyukhin stood out above all.

The first ever European League will finally come to a conclusion on Sunday when the Czech Republic and Russia battle for the gold medal. The bronze medal will be decided between the Netherlands and Germany.

European League 2004

Semi-final results:

CZE - NED	3:0	25:23, 25:21, 25:19
RUS - GER	3:0	25:22, 25:13, 25:14

Match for 3rd place:

NED - GER

11 July

14.30

Final:

CZE - RUS

11 July

17.00

More on the web at www.cev.lu

Enjoy & Be There:
10-11 July 2004: Final Four European League,Opava, Czech Republic.
22-25 July 2004: Under 20 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Koper, Slovenia.
29 July - 1 August 2004: Under 23 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Brno, Czech Republic.
5-8 August 2004: Under 18 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Myslowice, Poland.
2 September 2004: Drawing of lots 2004-2005 Indesit European Champions’ League, Vienna, Austria.
3-11 September 2004: Women’s Under 19 European Championships, Bardejov, Presov, Slovakia.
4-12 September 2004: Men’s Under 20 European Championships, Zagreb, Croatia.