Croatia make do with disappointment as Spain and Belgium qualify for #EuroVolleyU17M

The youngsters from Croatia will not participate in the U17 Men’s European Championship later this summer. In the second round Pool C qualifier played in Bibinje, Croatia finished fourth and last in the final standing after losing all their matches on home soil.

On the first day, Antonio Surać’s team lost to Romania 0-3 (24-26, 18--25, 22-25), a day later they suffered a heavy setback at the hands of Spain (9-25, 13-25, 11-25), and on Sunday they lost in straight sets to Belgium too (15-25, 15-25, 13-25). In the end, Spain and Belgium finished first and second respectively, to qualify for the final stage of #EuroVolleyU17M, followed by Romania and Croatia in third and fourth.

Fredison Mosquera, head coach of the Spanish team, was extremely satisfied at the end of the tournament and said:

His colleague from the Belgian side, Wim De Boeck, added: “We played two matches lasting for five sets. In the first game, we played well against Spain, which we know well, and won 3-2, but in the second game, we lost to a very motivated Romania by the same score. However, I am overall satisfied with the performance of my players and our qualification for the European Championship. The atmosphere at the tournament was great, as well as the organisation, which deserves only words of appraisal.”

Antonio Surać, coach of the Croatian U17 national team, stated: “After the first day where we played a close match with Romania, as can be seen from the trend of the results and the points won, we had no chances in the next two days. Both Spain and Belgium are better than us in all elements, especially they are physically more dominant. Our team still has a lot of work to do, not so much technically and tactically, as we need to work on the physical component. We were too soft, in the block, in the attack. The opponents were much more determined in that regard. We see some future in these guys, but there is still a lot of work to be done. They have not spent much time together, which was seen in the matches. I am sorry that we did not put up more resistance in the last two games, we were constantly behind from start to finish, so it was difficult to play in that situation. On the other hand, the opponent was more relaxed, so they could do more. I repeat once again, we need more hours of work, more matches, more competitions, because it is obvious that we lack that. I hope that the First League will soon be formed in which clubs with these young players would constantly play, which would serve them well as an education and to gain experience.”