Playing with a very young team, the Finnish men’s national volleyball team succumbed to the Czech Republic only at the end.
Joel Sippola,
Johannes Oikarinen,
STT Sports
In the C group of the men’s volleyball golden league, Finland gave a tough resistance to the pre-favorite Czech Republic on Wednesday night. Playing as the home team, the Czech Republic beat Finland in five sets with the scores 16–25, 25–22, 25–23, 23–25, 16–14.
Finland won the opening set overwhelmingly with an effective offensive game, but after that the control passed to the hosts. The Czech Republic took the second and third sets before Finland’s young team fought to win the fourth set.
The struggle of almost two and a half hours continued extremely evenly even in the decisive fifth set to the situation 14–14. Ultimately, the game was decided by Finland’s poor pass reception in the match ball.
– According to the statistics, Finland was better than the Czech Republic in every area. The victory was not taken because we were not strong enough for the right moments. The passenger distribution was not ideal either, because Antti Ronkainen got too many passes. General players’ performance was low, Urheilu’s expert Mikko Esko comment after the match.
Finland played well with a young team. The average age of the team was 22 years. The leader of the group was 26-year-old Ronkainen.
One of the players who got a lot of responsibility was 19 years old Miika Haapaniemi.
– Without a doubt, it is positive that new players can get on the field. He (Haapaniemi) has only one league season behind him. An incredible match from him, Esko beamed.
In the second match of the group, Estonia defeated Slovenia 3–0. In their opening game, Finland beat Estonia away from home with a score of 3–0. After two rounds, the Czech Republic leads the group with a full six-point haul.
Finland will play its first home match on Sunday, when it will face Slovakia, which is still scoreless.