After the loss to Austria yesterday, the Israeli team suffered another defeat tonight (Thursday), 3-0 against Bulgaria in the European Championship qualifiers. She will now need two wins in the next two games to keep a chance of qualifying for the tournament, and that should start tomorrow against Austria.
The game opens in a balanced way. Both teams missed opening strokes and Bulgaria went up to a quick 3: 5. Israel, with the help of Ilya Goldrin equalized to 7: 7. From there the Bulgarians started to run away, and despite a great net play by Tamir Hershko, the team lost 26:24 at the end of the first set. 0: 1 to Bulgaria.
Israel started the second set strong and led by Ido David took a 2: 6 advantage, but the Bulgarians quickly returned to the game and equalized to 8: 8. Sokolov’s successful landings continued the Bulgarian momentum until a 11:14 advantage. The excellent pace of the Bulgarians led by Skrimov led to 16:25 at the end of the second set. 0: 2 to Bulgaria.
The third act was a rerun of the second. And Israel started well and gained a 10:15 advantage. But again, failed to maintain the advantage and the Bulgarians turned 22:25 and 0-3 on the way.
The national team coach said at the end of the game, Noam Katz: “It was a frustrating game. I’m proud of the players and we played great. Our guys are proving they can handle this level and they need experience. They are a bunch of winners who need to know how to finish systems. Congratulations to Ido David, Ilya Goldrin and Tamir Hershko who gave an excellent game, We have a great team, it just needs experience and in the end it will reach that. ”
Player of the Israeli national team, Yoav Sessler Explained the loss and looked ahead: “It’s a long tournament and the load has to be shared between the players. I think I contributed my part on the best side, we did not have enough training games but I think we did both this game and the previous one on the best side. Towards the game “Tomorrow I believe we can beat Austria.”