Sweden rolls on and gets the pass to the next round
The two teams started tying each other intensively from the very beginning up to 9-9 in the first set. Then Swedish spiker Marcus Nilsson got control over his left hand and forced Austria back from the net with his hard smashes from the right wing and Sweden gained a small leading from up to 15-12.
Number 9 within the Austria line-up, Matthias Mellitzer, put Austria back in the match again and forced Swedish head coach Johan Isacsson to take a time out at 18-16. But Sweden was actually never threatened by the Austrian guys.
In the second set the two teams had contact up till 5-5 when Austria showed some weak serve reception and after some strong block sessions from Urban Andersson and Marcus Nilsson the Austrian coach Claudio Cuelho took a time out at 13-11. After this Marcus Nilsson, recently awarded as the MVP in the Greek National League, aced five serves in a row and forced Austria to a second time out at 21-15. Austria never got into the match again and lost the set with 16-25 to Sweden.
In the third set Austria put some new fuel into the match thanks to good serves from Philip Schneider and strong attacks from central player Gerald Reiser. After that Marcus Nilsson started a very effective serving session, which led the way from16-18 to 22-18 by also including two aces. This was the end for Austria that never recovered back and Sweden could finally win the set 25-21 and the game with a solid 3:0.
“Marcus Nilsson killed us today, says the Austrian head coach, and there is not much to say about the match. Of course I’m disappointed, but this is a team we are building up for the future and we have lots of youngsters that need more international experience”.
The Swedish head coach, Johan Isacsson, was relieved after the match and said that the players were very tensed before starting off because this was commonly perceived as a very important match. “We had a hard struggle in Vienna two days ago and we didn’t had time to recover from that match. I’m very glad that we could win so easily. The boys deserved this victory today”, Johan continues.
The Swedish captain, setter Kalle Sandberg, was absolutely joyful after the match. “We were very tired both mentally and physically after the away match in Austria so this was a very nice victory. Now we are looking forward to the next round”.
Austria’s captain, Romanian-born Daniel Gavan, was not surprised about the defeat his team suffered against the Swedes. “We already lost this match in Vienna two days ago. We didn’t had the power to stop Nilsson. They put all balls to Marcus. He was the absolute king of the match and I can only congratulate Sweden”.
Marcus Nilsson was namely nominated, who scored 24 points in just 3 sets, was namely nominated MVP of the match. Austria’s best scorer was Matthias Mellitzer with 12 points.
2009 Senior European Championships - 1st Qualification Round part 2
2009 Senior European Championships - 1st Qualification Round part 2
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