Our U20 men's national team, which finished second at the European Championship in Serbia and Greece, received their award for team of the month in September in the traditional poll of the "Bulgaria" Press Club. Miroslav Zhivkov received the award for Coach No. 1 of the month. Zhivkov earned the prize for the third time. At the award ceremony, the team was represented by four players - Kristiyan Andreev, Jasmin Velichkov, Kostadin Kozelov and Konstantin Chipev.
In the poll for team of the month, our volleyball players received 22 votes from 26 sports newsrooms. Zhivkov received 25 votes.

"Thank you for the recognition, we are proud and happy," said the national coach. "It's easy to talk now. When we were working, pursuing a goal, it was difficult. Thank you to all the clubs for working with these young people. They enable the national team to have a good level. Congratulations to everyone who is with me and those who are in their clubs now. We are infinitely motivated to continue. After the final, I also said that I feel proud and ambitious. To succeed in doing that little thing that we lacked in the last match. We never set unrealistic goals. Every day we talked about a final in some form. When you go to a European Championship, you don't need big baskets. We had graduated our ambitions. We played every match like a final, taking one step forward.

The format was difficult and peculiar – two groups of eight teams are like two European championships. You cannot play at the highest level in all matches. The important thing is to strive to be as good as possible. I have never divided players into starters and reserves. This mentality is embedded as a strategy. They are a good collective. It's great that we were together and achieved strong results. The boys should be proud, and this should be a strong foundation for their future.

Our toughest matches were at the beginning. In the semi-final and final, we had self-confidence, we held our heads high. When you start the tournament, you don't know what's ahead of you. Every match was different. That's why we focused all our work not on a long-term perspective, but on each specific match. With eight teams in one place, every set is very important. Until the last moment, it was not known who would be second, who would be third in the group. Fatigue accumulates, injuries appear, momentary discomfort. There is no time for a specific reaction. There are no days off. It sounds difficult, but it's also very interesting.

"We are very proud and happy with what we achieved," said Kristiyan Andreev. "We wish each other good health and hope to improve the result at the upcoming World Championship."

"Thank you for the honor and the award," Kozelov continued. "We worked hard. After becoming vice-champions, there remained a bitterness that we were close to gold. We will work harder to show even more at the World Championship. It's a significant success to be second in Europe."

"Thank you very much to those who voted for us," Chipev continued. "Thanks to our coaches in the club and national teams, we got this far. There's a bitter taste that we're not gold medalists. But the World Championship is coming, and hopefully we'll improve our success."

"My staff gave me the opportunity to be part of the team," Velichkov concluded. "For the second year in a row, I played a European final. It's a shame I lost it. The emotions and experience helped me grow."

Photos: Nikolay Varadinov