Day 2
Egypt sets the second
victory, Algeria defeated Libya
 Cairo,
Egypt, December 22, 2008- The organizers Egypt set their second
victory in a raw over Burundi to lead the 2008 Boys Youth
African Nations Championship at the second day of the
competition here at Cairo Stadium Complex on Monday. Algeria
rebounded after losing in the first day to win their second
match against Libya.
The matches were attended by CAVB President Dr. Amr Elwani,
Local Organizing Committee and FEVB President Ali Elsergany, SOC
Delegate Joseph Mokanda, Referee Delegate Hassan Ahmed CAVB
Technical Director Mrs. Howyda Mondy and the competition Manager
Gamal Sheha.
It is known that 2009 FIVB Boys Youth World Championship in
Italy features five teams Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and
Burundi who play a round robin tournament determining the
African champions.
Egypt vs. Burundi
Egypt clinched their second victory over Burundi 3-0 (25-16,
25-17, 25-15) in 70 minutes. After Egypt won the first and
second sets the performance showed acute decline as the
promising Burundi team showed very modern volleyball in the
third set to lead 10-2 before Egypt rebounded back to draw 10-10
and win the third set.
Egypt improved their win- loss ratio to 2-0 to lead the round
robin competition with 4 points, while Burundi’s record became
0-1 in their first match.
Egypt head coach Reda Elgazale was not happy although his team
won the second match in a raw because the players did a lot of
mistake in attacks and defense specially in the third set. “The
players were trained well in all these situations and I’m very
sad to see all these mistakes in one match.” He said.
On the other hand Burundi Head coach Ahmed El Gazar was happy to
see his less experienced team playing this good game against
more experienced and better prepared team. “I’m happy with the
performance of my players specially the team captain Innocent
Irdukunda.” He said. “I think with more matches we will
improve.” He added.
Burundi surprised the home crowd with their steady performance
specially in blocking through Dushime Yves and Sixte Nderagakura
and thus they kept the draw 4-4 and Egypt led only at the first
technical timeout (FTT) 8-6. Egypt team changed the strategy to
depend on the middle blocks Mohamed Elmahdy and Mohamed
Elaskalany to start the fast combinations that allowed Egypt to
win the set 25-16.
The Egyptian coach made some substitutions to give some of the
bench players the chance but the team did many mistakes that
allowed Burundi to score many points. The reception of Burundi
team improved to build up the attacks through the setter Patrick
Bizimungu who used his attackers to score more points than the
first set as Egypt won 25-17.
Burundi started the third set with the best performance as they
used the disturbed Egyptian defense to score successive points
till they led for the first time at a technical timeout 8-2 due
to the efficient spikes of Delphin Bigirmana and Innocent
Irdukunda. After the technical timeout the Egyptian coach called
a timeout at 9-2 for Burundi to give his players the reassurance
and they succeeded to get the draw 10-10 through the spikes of
El Mahdy and Eslam Aboulhassan. Egypt continued their superior
performance to win the set 25-15.
Algeria vs. Libya
Algeria edged the much improved Libyan team 3-0 (25-22, 25-17,
25-14) in 73 minutes. The Algerian wing spikers Raouf Nedjar and
Walid Zouai led their team to win the most difficult first set
and then he paved the way for his team to continue the same
rhythm in the second and third sets. Nedjar was the match scorer
with 11 points Algeria improved their win- loss ratio to 1-1
with 3 points to occupy the second position while Libya dropped
to 0-2.
The Algerian head coach Abdelhakim Djehiche mentioned that the
his players were psychologically affected by the defeat against
Tunisia in the first day and thus they were affected in the
first set and then they came back to win easily the second and
third sets. “I think the period of preparation was not enough
for my players so it was apparent specially in reception which
was our big point of weakness.” He said. “We changed our
attacking strategy many times depending on the centers for some
times then on the wing spikers in other periods.” He added.
Libya Head coach Toufik Mansouri was more satisfied with his
players than in the first match. “We played better today because
the players get more improvement by the matches due to our weak
preparation. I’m happy today with the steady performance of my
center Mohamed Abodabbuss, he was my best player in the
competition till now.
The first set was the most exciting due to the exciting rallies
from both teams. Libya improved their block through Mohamed
Abodabbuss and Wassim Altaloua than their first match against
Egypt so Libya led at the first technical timeout (FTT) 8-6.
Algeria came back through the strong left attackers Raouf Nedjar
and Walid Zouai and with the better reception they went through
to win the set 25-22.
The Algerian team started the second set with the same inertia
and depend more on the centers Sofiane Hasni and Sofiane
Haichour to spike from position 3. Algeria stayed ahead widely
all through the set to win 25-17 after a group of successful
spike services.
The Libyan players committed many mistakes in the third set in
reception and digging and this allowed Algeria to control the
set through the spikes of Zouai to win the easiest set 25-14. |
