Serbia – The New European Champion!

An exciting and tied match played in front of numerous Serbian fans ended the 2011 European Championship bringing the new Champions - the team of Serbia. In the final match of the European Championship 2011 played in Wien an absolute favorite of the spectators was the team of Serbia. Their support apparently helped their compatriots in numerous difficult situations on the court. The 1st set starts with 1-point-lead of Serbia on the 1st technical time out, but then Luigi Mastrangelo joins the fight for the victory. He defends a hard ball, serves an ace and adds a block. Helps also Michal Lasko, who scores 2 consecutive points in attack, and Ivan Zaytsev with 2 aces. At the end the Italians block the Serbian bombardier, Ivan Miljkovic, and win the set. The next part of the game looks similar to the first – Serbia leads on the 1st technical time out. But thanks to great attacks of Miljkovic, efficient blocks of Marko Podrascanin and many errors of the Italian players, the Serbian team is able to win with 5 points lead. In the 3rd set Serbia leads already 13:8, but this set is the performance of Christian Savani. Thanks to his wonderful attack Italia gets to the tie 17:17, then 23:23 and still has chances for winning the set. However, the luck is on the Serbian side, they finish the set with surprising ace. During the 4th set we all were thinking that Italy controlled the game. But they make a lot of errors and Serbia lead to the tie 13:13, then 19:19 and 24:24. The 25th point scores the best player of this tournament: Ivan Miljkovic. And after an ace of Milan Terzic Serbia could celebrate their first gold medal in history (since they don’t play as Yugoslavia)! For the Italians it’s the 3rd silver medal in history of European Championship, but a big step forward in relation to the ECH 2009 where they ended on the 10th position.

The best players of the European Championship 2011:

• Best attacker: Maxim Mikhailov (Russia)
• Best blocker: Marko Podrascanin (Serbia)
• Best server: Bartosz Kurek (Poland)
• Best libero: Andrea Bari (Italy)
• Best receiver: Nikola Kovacevic (Serbia)
• Best setter: Dragan Travica (Italy)
• Best scorer: Maxim Mikhailov (Russia)
• MVP: Ivan Miljkovic (Serbia)