STA, 13 September 2021 - The Slovenian men's volleyball team made it to the quarter-finals of the European Championships by beating Croatia in the round of 16 in Ostrava, Czech Republic on Monday.
Slovenia needed four sets to beat the neighbours, taking the first set convincingly and only slipping in the third set.
This served as motivation for the runners-up from the 2019 European Championship, who never let the Croatians come close in the fourth set, allowing them to score only 12 points to Slovenia's 25.
Klemen Čebulj was the top scorer for Slovenia with 13 points, and two players scored 11 points each as the country qualified for the top-eight at European Championships for the fourth time in a row.
Slovenia's Jan Kozamernik said that "today we played out a solid match. We had know that it would be difficult, also because this is a rivalry of neighbours and both teams were very motivated. We showed them that our quality was better."
Slovenia will play their quarter-finals match in Ostrava on Wednesday with the winner of the round of 16 encounter between the reining Olympic champions France and the Czech Republic.
"The quarter-final match will certainly be much more difficult, so we will need to raise our game to the next level and show that we deserve qualification in the semi-finals," Kozamernik added.
