The Spanish men’s volleyball team said goodbye to the European Championship when they fell in Tampere (Finland) against the Olympic runner-up Russia by 1-3 (20-25, 25-20, 16-25, 17-25). Ricardo Maldonado’s players kept the first set even until the final stretch, when the Russian blocking appeared and Kliuka’s points to unbalance the contest.
Spain reacted in the second set, in its best moments of the tournament, to equalize and keep alive the chances of entering the playoffs, but Russia put a wall in the center of the network to break the Spanish dream first and avoid national attempts to say goodbye to the tournament with victory, reported the Spanish Federation.
Russia exhibited a great serve and an iron block with which he controlled the actions of the Spanish players. Andrés Villena’s points, along with Jordi Ramón’s serve, put Ricardo Maldonado’s pupils (11-9) ahead, but the Olympic runners-up pushed in their game to close the first set 20-25. In the second, a direct serve by Ángel Trinidad gave Spain a four-point lead (8-4) against Tuomas Sammelvuo’s block, which had to exhaust time-outs with 14-8 on the scoreboard.
The RedLynxes displayed the best game of the tournament, with great defenses and shining in all facets to get an advantage in the final stretch 22-18 after a blocking by Jordi Ramón. Spain would not fail and sealed the equality on the scoreboard with a clear 25-20.
Russia put more intensity in his actions and Egor Kliuka emerged as the offensive leader of Russia to surpass the twenty points in the individual aspect and to secure the third set by 16-25, nipping at the root any mathematical option of Spain to access the qualifying rounds.
Spain suffered before the Russian punch, but kept the pace on the scoreboard with a constant exchange of actions broken by the points of Kliuka and Volkov. Russia was gaining more and more advantage on the scoreboard and ended up sealing the victory with a clear 15-25.