Berlin, Germany, January 5, 2020 - Vice-champions of Europe, Slovenia celebrated their first win on the #RoadtoTokyo as they defeated Belgium in straight sets 3-0 (25-23, 28-26, 25-20) on Sunday at the Max-Schmeling-Halle in Berlin.
It was a good start for Slovenia and their coach Alberto Giuliani admitted he was pleased his team started the tournament with a positive attitude. “I am really happy with our performance. The first match is always not an easy one but it was quite a good start.”
Slovenia captain Tine Urnaut underlined how difficult the match was and pointed to some of the challenges ahead. ”I think it was a tough match. We still have to be more constant in side-out but did a great job serving and defending as well as creating possibilities destroying their attacks. We went two, three points in front in the first two sets but we let the opponent come back. In the third set we did a good job - we continued to play aggressively and it was a very important win for us. It will be a very tough game against Germany, our next opponents; they have a really good team. We will do our best to play the best volleyball we can and win.”
Belgium coach Dominique Baeyens was disappointed with the result but believes his team is in a position to challenge all their opponents in Berlin. “It was obviously not the result we were hoping for. We knew before the start that we had to play on a high level to compete with these teams, but it wasn’t enough today. We still had a chance to win the first and second sets as we were in front but couldn’t close the sets. Just small things made the difference which is very annoying. We now have to win every game to stay in the tournament. Of course it will be really hard but we are difficult to play and will not give up until the end.”