Germany weather the storm to claim first victory in Pool A

Waiting for hosts Türkiye to take to the court of the Sinan Erdem Sports Hall for a second time since the start of the competition, Germany went through ups and downs in their matchup with outsiders Latvia – before eventually securing a much-needed 3-1 victory. Latvia, making their first EuroVolley appearance since 1997, have somehow been ‘adopted’ by the local audience in Istanbul, becoming some sort of ‘crowd favourites’ as they show with each day and performance that they truly belong to such an imposing and at times even challenging stage.  

Latvia vs. Germany 1-3 (15-25, 18-25, 25-13, 15-25) 

These two teams had previously met once at EuroVolley, namely in the Pool Phase of the 1995 edition, which resulted in a 3-0 win for the Germans (15-9, 15-1, 15-2 – that was well before the introduction of the current rally point system). Germany and Latvia had not played each other since 2006 (!) when their paths had crossed in qualifiers for the EuroVolley due to take place a year later in Belgium and Luxembourg. They both had to regroup following 0-3 losses they had suffered at the hands of Slovenia and Türkiye earlier in the competition even though they obviously had left the court with very different feelings. Truly excited about every single opportunity to play at this level for the first time since 1997, Latvia had nothing to lose – whereas Germany had experienced a major setback in their matchup with Slovenia. 

After a fairly close start, Germany broke away in the opening set and cruised to a comprehensive 25-15 set win propelled by six points scored by Leana Grozer. The youngster, competing at EuroVolley for the very first time, had admitted to have talked to her illustrious father Georg the night before after the heavy loss to Slovenia and to have received words of encouragement. “He simply told me to keep going and bring all of my emotions to the court, just as he has always done,” Leana said in the pre-match interview. 

The second set was a more cagey affair, with Latvia displaying their solid defence-block work that fans had witnessed also in their matchup with Türkiye to keep the pace of their opponent for quite some time before Germany found another gear (21-14), thereby prompting a timeout by Latvia’s head coach Daniele Capriotti. The Baltic team managed to score a few more points after the break but Germany eventually doubled their lead in the match following a powerful back-row attack by Hanna Orthmann (25-18). Lina Alsmeier scored four points for Germany in this set – just as many as Latvia’s top player Marta Kamelija Levinska. 

Levinska (12 points) was the major force that Latvia could count on as they delivered a superb performance in the third set, much to the delight of the Turkish crowd slowly coming together for the subsequent match between the hosts and Slovenia. Latvia also used Germany’s errors to their advantage to re-open the match with a massive 25-13 set win. The underdogs remained in contention also in the early stages of the fourth set before Germany finally found some more consistency and quality to secure their first victory in the group. Yet, the Latvians had many positives to take from this match, including the vocal support they had enjoyed from the local fans. Levinska top scored in the end with 24 points as Grozer and Alsmeier scored the most points for Germany (17).