Bulgaria decisively defeated Spain 3:0 (25-18, 25-17, 25-21), thereby finalizing its ranking in preliminary group 2 in Arta, Greece. Even before our last match against the Iberians, the team led by Miroslav Zhivkov qualified for the final four, after the Czech Republic defeated Israel 3:1. Nevertheless, our players came out focused and despite another power outage in the hall, they managed to hold on until the end without sharp fluctuations in their game. Thus, the Bulgarians avoided a meeting with France in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, and our options for an opponent are the hosts, Ukraine, or Turkey.
Nikolay Ivanov was the top scorer for our team with 12 points.

Another solid match for Zhasmin Velichkov and Kostadin Kozelov, who scored 11 points each.

Bulgaria started convincingly. In the first game, they took a 5:2 lead and allowed no surprises for the final 25:18.

Shortly after, there was a power outage and the teams waited about half an hour for the game to resume. In the second set, the Iberians briefly had a 5:4 lead, but then the "tricolors," led by coach Miroslav Zhivkov, turned the tide of events on the court and took a 2:0 lead after 25:17.

In the third game, Spain took a 3:1 lead, then reached a more convincing 7:4, but the Bulgarians equalized at 8:8 and then took a 19:13 lead. The match ended 25:21 and 3:0.

Photos: Nikolay Varadinov