2024-09-09 05:51:33
Another request for a good future for Bulgarian men’s volleyball was made at the end of this summer.
After the national under-21 team became third in the world, now the under-20 team reached the silver medals at the European Championship.
In the Serbian city of Vrnjačka Banya, the selected team of coach Miroslav Zhivkov took a 1:0 lead in the final game against the French team, which last year became the continental U-19 champion. After that, however, the “roosters” made a comeback to 3:1 and won the title with 9 victories of 9 matches.
Ours finished with 7/2. The U20 nationals definitely had strong performances. In the final, they came close to making it a tiebreaker, but missed 3 game balls for a 2-2 draw.
Strong team performances led to individual awards for three of our runners-up.
Captain Simeon Nikolov, who is only 17 years old, was chosen as distributor number 1 at the European finals, which were also held in the Greek city of Arta. Alexander Kandev was named as one of the two best receivers of the tournament. Among the central blockers, one of the places is for Stiliyan Delibosov.
It is interesting that the first two promising volleyball players will continue their development in the USA. Nikolov and Kandev will follow the path of Simeon’s older brother – Alexander.
Starting in the fall, Levski juniors will continue their education at Long Beach University and will be part of its team for the college championship. Thus, Nikolov and Kandev will join another product of the “blue” school. Central blocker Lazar Buchkov has already spent 1 year in Long Beach.
After only one season in his team, Alex Nikolov was attracted by one of the Italian giants “Cucine Lube” (Civitanova). This happened in the summer of 2022. Alex and Moni are two of the three sons of our volleyball legend Vladimir Nikolov (he also has a daughter).
The former captain of the national team was recruited at the insistence of Miroslav Zhivkov to the staff of the under-20 team for the Balkans and the European Championship.
Bulgaria became #1 on the peninsula last month, and the tournament was once again in Varniachka Banya.
It is also worth noting that in this age group – up to 20 years, Bulgarian volleyball has not had a big final since 14 years. In 2010, the youth lost 1:3 in the match for the gold of the European Championship against Russia.