Bulgaria's U18 men's national team started its participation in the 2026 European Championship in Cisterna di Latina (Italy) in an impressive manner. The protégés of head coach Miroslav Zhivkov defeated the reigning European champion France 3:1 (25:23, 18:25, 25:21, 25:19) in their first match in Group II. Our team was supported by a significant fan contingent.

The French are the title holders from the previous European Championship in 2024, which took place in Sofia and Plovdiv. It is worth noting that the French team undergoes centralized training.
The Bulgarian team showed character after losing the second set and managed to impose their game in the decisive moments. The third set was particularly important, in which our national players made excellent use of the opponent's errors. In this set alone, Bulgaria scored 14 points from France's errors, compared to just 4 for the opponent.
Team statistics show how even the match was, but also where Bulgaria made the difference. Our team finished with 12 successful blocks against 7 for France, had 43% attack efficiency against 42% for the opponent, and better positive reception – 57% against 49%. France scored more attack points – 51 against 43, as well as more aces – 4 against 1, but made more errors, which proved decisive. Bulgaria gained 37 points from opponent's errors against 26 for France.
Nikola Gradinarov was the top scorer for Bulgaria with 15 points.

Pavel Dzhenevez added 14, while Kristian Kosev and Nikolay Veselinov scored 10 points each. For France, Mateo Mrozek scored 23 points, and Antonin Bonnar added 12, but even this was not enough for success.
Earlier, in the other match of the group, Romania defeated the Netherlands 3:1.
Bulgaria's next match is tomorrow against Germany. The match starts at 13:30 Bulgarian time.

photos: cev.eu