Portugal today showed its sixth presence at the European Men’s Volleyball Championship following a 3-0 win over Norway in Matosinhos at 25-17, 25-18 and 25-22.
The Portuguese team has already remained in the final stage of the competition, beating Belarus 3: 1 on Friday, and today confirmed the qualification with another victory in the fifth game of the Group G qualification, remaining undefeated at this stage.
Portugal dominated the game, clearly winning, and gave Norway only a few chances in the third and final partial match, the only one in which the Nordics managed to score (6-5 and 16-15).
The first set started off well for the national colors, who quickly gained a comfortable 11-4 points advantage that they never lost thanks to efficient serve and safe defensive play.
The superiority of the Portuguese remained in the next partial case, but less noticeable than before, because Norway improved performance and managed to fight more thanks to the actions of their captain Jonas Kvalen.
Coach Hugo Silva has made a strong bet on a team with four Benfica fans who have been national champions this season, Ivo Casas, Thiago Violas, André López and Hugo Gaspar, not counting some of the starting players, and the results have proved him right.
After a clear victory in the first set, Portugal also prevailed in the second and reached 2: 0, while Hugo Gaspar distinguished himself in attacking actions, and the team proved to be very cohesive and confident.
The situation changed a lot in the third segment: Portugal fell in the competition, and Norway took advantage of the advantage, risked even more and fought almost to the end for the result.
That is why the Nordics managed to get the better of the scoreboard twice and even create the feeling that they can bring the match to the fourth set.
Then the Portuguese coach launched Alexandra Ferreira, and it was this striker with his powerful serve and his rival Hugo Gaspar with well-executed shots that brought Portugal out of an unexpected grip and, thus, contributed to the victory with a score of 25: 22 and 3: 0. Final.
Portugal, which was present in the final stages of 1948, 1951, 2005, 2011 and 2019, guaranteed victory in the qualifying group by adding 14 points, four more than Belarus, which beat Hungary 3-1 today.
The 2021 European Championships, the 32nd edition of this event, will take place from 1 to 19 September in four different countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia and Finland.
The Portuguese best result was in their debut in 1948: fourth place among six teams, then seventh in 1951, 10th in 2005, 14th in 2011 and 20th in 2019. later, for the first time with two performances in a row, for the sixth race.
Female selection gets in the way
The Portuguese women’s volleyball team lost 3-0 to Ukraine today in the second round of the second qualifying tournament in Tbilisi and got in the way of “race” for the last 12 places in the European Championship.
Portugal was forced to win to maintain qualification hopes, but Ukraine has always proved to be stronger than the team coached by João Jose, and with partial games 25-14, 25-13 and 25-13 guaranteed qualification together with Sweden.
Winning 3-0, the Ukrainians added three classification points, for a total of 10, against zero for the Portuguese, who retained third place, with six points, with no chance of reaching their rivals no matter what they get. on Sunday., against Sweden, which leads the group.
In the first set, the Portuguese team was unable to maintain balance beyond the initial partial 3: 3 and at first saw the very distance of the opponent from Eastern Europe, especially during the period when Ukraine was increasing the distance with a partial result of 5: 0. An advantage of up to nine points (17-8), which allowed him to reach the final 25-14.
A similar scenario would have taken place in the second period, in which the Portuguese managed to remain in the discussion of the result only until the moment when the score became 4-4, and the Ukrainians again began to “dig” the gap, which increased with the game 7-0, which increased the advantage Ukrainians from 8-6 to 15-6 and practically deprived the “set” before the final 25-13.
Forced to react, the Portuguese team had the best phase of the game at the beginning of the third “set”, where they managed to get the biggest advantage in the entire game by three points (9-6), but the Ukrainian coach’s request for a two-fold discount in a short time produced the desired Effect.
Then the Ukrainians moved to the 19: 4 partial, which left no chance for the Portuguese team to react and put an end to the “dream” of being present at the final stage of Euro 2021, which will be held in Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia. and Romania from 18 August to 4 September.
Ana Veil, with 10 out of 31 points scored in the qualifier, was singled out on the Portuguese side, followed by Aline Rodrigues (six points), Maria Lopez (five), Julia Cavalenca (three), Amanda Cavalcanti (three), Ines Pereira … (two) and Martha Wurst (two).
Portugal will face Sweden on Sunday at 15:30 (Lisbon time) in a match that will end against qualifying Group B, three hours after Ukraine’s meeting with Georgia.
