European volleyball CEV Cup has the winner. In front of 13 000 spectators Russia´s Lokomotiv Belgorod defeated Panathinaikos Athens in four sets.
Lokomotiv-Belogorie Belgorod clinched this year´s CEV Cup with a solid performance against the home team of Panathinaikos ATHENS. A frenzied and massive audience was not enough to push the local guys to their first European trophy ever, while Russian coach Gennady Shipulin was happy to celebrate the comeback of his club to the European elite.
Panathinaikos performed quite badly in the serving area and the reception was quite shaky as well, so Belgorod scored the first set at 25-19 with a spike from the back row. As the second set started out, both teams were forcing and risking their services. Panathinaikos did an amazing job with their spikers and especially Agamez was regularly hitting through the Russian block, even from various positions, firing up the local fans. The end of second set was fully in hands of Greek team, resutl 25-17 – and who else rather than Agamez might have scored the final rally? In the third set Lokomotiv regained some more consistency in attack with both captain Tetyukhin and Taras Khtey raising significantly up their efficiency. Panathinaikos missed a couple of decisive rallies a few seconds later and Lokomotiv closed out the third set with giant Dmitry Misersky. Panathinaikos did not give up the game but then the Russians pushed even stronger and they sailed to 16:12 at the second technical break. Lokomotiv did not fail that shot at the trophy and finished the job at 25-19.
G. Shipulin was really happy after the final match: “I can simply tell you that I am really happy, it was great to come back to Greece, I still have so many memories from the Olympics and the atmosphere in the competition hall was weird. This is not simply a trophy for our own club, but also for Russia and all our volleyball family”.
Cuneo really disappointed their fans yesterday as, after having led the way 2:0, they suffered an amazing comeback of local Panathinaikos Athens. Today in the bronze medal match, after an awful start, Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo bounced back to step onto the podium defeating Unicaja Almeria in four sets.
Cuneo´s captain Wijsmans stated: “I did not play as I have some pain on my knee and I do not want to risk that I will miss the upcoming Playoffs in our National League. I am happy with this bronze medal, we played not that good in the first set, but we came back strongly”. Head coach of Italian team Silvano Prandi added: “Our efficiency in attack was not that impressive, but we played at a good level”.
Final match Lokomotiv Belgorod325172525Panathinaikos Athens119252019 Bronze medal match Bre Banca Lanutti Cuneo318252525Unicaja Almeria125221818
from CEV
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