Maritsa (Plovdiv)'s European campaign in the Women's Champions League continued with another tough challenge in Germany. The Bulgarian champion lost as a guest to Palmberg (Schwerin) 0:3 (20:25, 21:25, 17:25) in a Group E match, played in front of over 1500 spectators in a hall in Schwerin. An interesting fact is that two coaches who will work together with the Dutch national team faced each other -Felix Koslowski andAhmetcan Eşimşek.

This was the third loss for Ahmetcan Eşimşek's girls in the tournament, with the Plovdiv team remaining in third place in the temporary standings with 1 win, 3 losses, and 4 points. Nevertheless, Maritsa maintains realistic chances of continuing in the CEV Cup tournament. In the next round, the Bulgarian champion hosts the group leader – Polish Developres (Rzeszów) – on January 27 at 18:30 in the Kolodruma Hall.
The hosts exerted serious pressure from the start with powerful serves and quickly took a 12:4 lead in the first set. Maritsa stabilized their game and narrowed the gap to 16:19, but Palmberg maintained their lead and closed the set at 25:20. In the second set, the "yellow-blues" started better and led 6:2, but after 21:21, the Germans made a run of four consecutive points and took the set 25:21.

The third set started promisingly for Maritsa – 7:2, but after an equalization at 10:10, the initiative once again shifted to the hosts. A key factor was Leana Grozer's serving run – daughter of the legendary German national Georg Grozer – after which Palmberg pulled decisively ahead and finished the match at 25:17.

The most effective player for Maritsa was Iva Dudova with 14 points (1 block and 43% attack efficiency), while Borislava Saykova and Vanessa Agbortabi added 8 and 7 points respectively. For Palmberg, Leana Grozer shone with an impressive 22 points, including 6 aces, and was deservedly chosen as the MVP of the match.

Mia Kirchhoff contributed another 14 points to the German team's convincing victory.

photos: cev.eu