Israel’s reserve team opened its historic appearance at the European Championships with a 3: 1 loss (25:26, 25:17, 25:11, 25:16) to the strong Turkish team. The Israeli team was placed in the championship in House B and will face the Danish team tomorrow and on Friday against the Polish team that is nominated to win the championship title. In the second house – teams from Italy, Austria, Serbia and Ukraine compete.
The two teams placed first in each house will advance to the semifinals and all remaining teams will leave the tournament. On the final day there will be bronze and gold medals.
Israel with a historic refusal that opens the game, the blue and whites lead at the beginning of the campaign and shows a very assertive opening, the sixth point (6: 5) was to the credit of the Turks but all after a rally from the films of the two teams.
The close game continued with – 10:10 but later the Turkish team shifted gears and ran to a six point lead 18:12, this difference sends coach Logan Tom to take a timeout to try to save the battle. The timeout helped and after an impressive rally display Israel manages to narrow the gap to three points. The Turkish coach did not like the difference and takes a timeout that returns his team to business for a very short time, the drama continued when the Turks were already close to a point of victory in the battle 24:21 The blue and whites came back big, equalized to 24:24 : 24.
The second campaign opened with a 9: 6 Turkish advantage that grew to 13: 7, during these stages the Israeli team had no answer to the Turkish attack to the right and left of the net. Later in the campaign -16: 11. The team managed to shrink to three points (16:13). A Turkish timeout returns the red team to the surface with a different energy and the scoreboard shows -20:13. The feeling in the team was that it was possible to make the change this time as well, but the Turks thought otherwise, winning the battle – 25:17 and comparing the balance of the systems to 1: 1.
A weak start for the Israeli team in the third set gives the Turks the opportunity to lead 8: 1. The Turks continued the run without an Israeli answer 13: 4. With a double-digit advantage, the coach of the Israeli team takes a time-out to stop the red run, but this time it did not help and the Turkish team, which is considered with many chances to advance to the next stage, also takes the third set 25:11.
The fourth set is underway, the Israeli team with its back to the wall lags behind at the beginning of the set by five points (10: 5). Later in the campaign the Turks continued to lead 18:13 and with a beautiful volleyball display throughout the campaign also won the fourth campaign 25:16.
Israel will meet the Danish team tomorrow at 18:30 and hope to win their first victory in the tournament.