After a great opening in the Leg 1 of #CLVolleyM against ACH Volley LJUBLJANA, BERLIN Recycling Volleys lost a bit confidence because of the injury of one of their star players, Benjamin Patch (USA) who has torn his left Achilles tendon and will pause till January. Fakel used well this advantage and led for most of the match.

First set was tight, despite the three-point lead of hosts, Sergey Grankin made the difference on serve and BERLIN first tied, then took a lead. Russians answered fast and did not let Germans to speed up. In the end, with a great support from the tribunes and brilliant performance of Dmitrii Volkov and Egor Kliuka, Fakel NOVY URENGOY won 25-22. They did not lose the focus and used every little mistake of the away team in the second part, leading 16-8. Again good serves of Grankin give some points to BERLIN Recycling Volleys, but coach Camilo Placi prepared his team well and they easily took the 2-0 lead.The German champions tried to fight once more, but Russians were on the winning path. They were holding the advantage of 8 points till the end of the match. Dmitrii Volkov took the responsibility of scoring, becoming the best scorer with 18 points all. The MVP of the game was chosen Kliuka, who played also very well on defence, scored 14 points.

Camillo Placi, head coach of Fakel NOVY URENGOY: “We did not succeed in the first match of the Champions League in Kemerovo. And we needed to return to our game and forget this insulting defeat. Today we beat confidently a good team. Our game in attack and block became the main reason for this victory.”

Cedric Enard head coach of BERLIN Recycling Volleys: “We acted very well in the first set, we saved a lot of balls. But still, our attack was not so good. In the second set, we began to play more aggressively, but then something happened and we lost concentration. There was a very bad percentage in the attack and with such numbers it was very difficult to play against Fakel.

Egor Kliuka, outside-hitter of Fakel NOVY URENGOY: “I am glad that we won 3-0, quite confidently, but we made a lot of mistakes. It is very good that inside the team no one bowed his head, as it happened in Kemerovo.”

Moritz Reichert, outsid-hitter of BERLIN Recycling Volleys: “We have created ourselves a difficult situation, from which we could not get out later.”