In the first round of the 45th Memorial Tournament "Branko Hadžiiljoski - Čajka", which is held in Skopje, the volleyball team of Montenegro was defeated by the home team of North Macedonia with 3:0 (25:21, 28:26, 25:19).
Our volleyball players, who are preparing for the European Championship in the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Finland (September 1 - 19), will play against Slovakia tomorrow in the second round, which will be the last match of the tournament, because the Israeli team canceled its performance due to of positive cases of COVID-19.
"Difficult game, which is to be expected considering that it is our first since we started preparations. Despite the 3:0 defeat, there were good things, and I'm sure that we will provide more and more in every future match, because our goal is to get our form in time for the start of the European Championship", said captain Vojin Ćaćić.
Rajko Strugar, Miloš Ćulafić, Vojin Ćaćić, Ivan Zvicer, Ivan Ječmenica, Blažo Milić and as libero Nikola Lakčević started for Montenegro.
In the first set, the "reds" took the lead 18:17 with Miloš Ćulafić's ace, but then they stopped - the host went to 23:19 and won the set with a score of 25:21.
Montenegro offered the greatest resistance in the second set, in which they led 19:16, and had two set points (24:22), but the Macedonians pulled through and won the set on difference.
In the third, there was no dilemma, the host was playful...
"We made too many direct errors to expect something more, even 11 per set. This may be the result of the difficult journey we had, but it is also logical in this part of the preparations. This is certainly far from our game, I think we will keep getting better and better in the next matches," said coach Veljko Bašić.
In its second appearance at the European Championship, Montenegro is in Group B, with the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Belarus.
They will play the group games in the Czech Ostrava, and the first against Bulgaria on September 3.
Four teams from four groups will advance to the main stage.
Bonus video:
