Slovenia dethrone VNL champions France

Slovenia dropped the first major sensation of the men’s Volleyball Nations League in Ningbo, China. They delivered a 3-1 (25-22, 15-25, 25-19, 25-18) upset of defending VNL champions and reigning Olympic champions France in Thursday’s first quarterfinal and are now set to take on reigning world champions Italy in one of Saturday’s semifinals. It will be Slovenia’s third VNL semifinal in history, and now they are aiming at their first VNL medal.

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Slovenia dethroned France, but it would not be inaccurate to say that France dethroned themselves. They committed a massive number of 40 unforced errors, which practically cost them the match. In the fourth set alone, they gifted 16 points to the opponents, including the match winner, which came on a serving error. The only other element in which Slovenia outperformed France was the blocking, with 10 stuffs against just four.

Setter Uros Planinsic authored four of those 10 kill blocks. Middle blocker and captain Jan Kozamernik added another three to finish with a total of six points, while opposite Toncek Stern led Slovenia with 16 points, all in swings at a 59% success rate in attack.

“It was unexpected for sure, even for us. But we came from a good position, without pressure. We played good volleyball in the league round and, for sure, we did not come to the Finals for just one game,” Slovenia’s 23-year-old outside hitter Rok Mozic told VBTV after the game. “It was not our best match, and not the best match for France, with a lot of mistakes. But the most important was the win today. We stayed in the game, except for the second set, and we are incredibly happy, because the final four is an incredible result for us. But we don’t want to stop. We have two more games in front of us and, for sure, we want to go home with a medal.”

France outscored Slovenia in both attack (56-38 in spike kills) and serving (7-2 in aces). Swinging at a 55% success rate in attack, their opposite Theo Faure was the best scorer of the match with 19 points, including an ace and a kill block. Outside hitters Yacine Louati and Trevor Celevenot produced 15 and 13 points, respectively, for France.

“It’s easy – Slovenia played better than us and the best team won today,” commented France’s setter and captain Benjamin Toniutti. “So, congrats to Slovenia! For us, it was not a good day. I think we played badly. So, we have to think about this, go back to France, recover and prepare ourselves as a team, mentally and physically, for the World Championship.”

The last quarterfinal in Ningbo, between Japan and Poland, is set to serve off later on Thursday, at 19:00 local time (11:00 UTC). The winner of that match will face Brazil in the other semifinal on Saturday.

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