08-SEPTEMBER-2012
BELARUS STUNS PORTUGAL
 
 

After edging Turkey on Friday, Belarus did cause another surprise at the European qualifier – Pool A by cruising to a spectacular win in straight sets (25-19, 25-20, and 29-27) against the hosts of Portugal to reinforce its leadership in the standings of the group. In the other match of the day, Great Britain was able to beat Turkey 3:2 (17-25, 25-20, 25-20, 13-25, and 26-24) at the end of what was a real marathon.
Portugal woke up a way too late in their match with Belarus and will need to score a win on Sunday against Turkey not to compromise their chances to make it to the final round of the 2013 European Championship. Supported by the local crowd, the home heroes committed a way too many mistakes in the first two sets and were not able to complete their comeback in set 3.

Belarus went up 8:5 in the first set by taking five points from errors of Portugal; after cruising to the provisional 12:6, the Belarusian side was once more helped by the mistakes of the local heroes (16:11, 20:14) and Siarhei Busel killed a spike for the final 25-19.
Belarus practically made no mistakes in set 2 and sailed to the final 25-20 with ease with the score being sealed by an ace of Pavel Audochanka. Portugal’s flurry of mistakes did not stop in set 3 and even though they were fired up by the audience, the hosts could not bring it home, with Belarus celebrating a classy 3:0 win.

Alexandre Ferreira and Joao Jose top scored for Portugal with 14 and 12 points while Siarhei Antanovich and Siarhei Busel paced Belarus with 10 apiece.

“I am very happy that today we could celebrate our first win against Portugal” said Belarusian mentor Viktor Sidelnikov. “They surely did not play their best but we were good in profiting of this and win the game. The third set was very close but we brought it home thereby reinforcing our leadership in the group”.

“We made many mistakes and we got into the game only halfway through the second set and in the third. We have a very important match with Turkey on Sunday that we need to win to finish second before we travel next week to Ankara. We need the right boost of confidence and shall not wait for the result of the other match” stressed home mentor Flavio Gulinelli.

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