Joel and Luki made it to a stunning final

Our #teambolao athletes reached the amazng second place and nearly beat the favorized Brazilians in the final in Cascais, Portugal.

Joel tells us, how he lived this experience:

“In terms of the result, it was an outstanding second place in an international tournament. For us as a team, it was certainly the biggest success on this level. Especially the semi-final against Israel, who were certainly the favourites along with Brazil, was incredible.

We also saw the tournament as preparation for the World Challenge in Graz. We started quite relaxed in a quite difficult group. Then we got into it well and we felt strong right away. In the second game we struggled a bit, lost to Spain and then advanced as group runners-up.

In the quarter-final against Portugal 1, we knew it was going to be tough, but we played some good footvolley. Funnily enough, we had more problems in defence at the beginning. Defense is normally one of our strenghts, but then we became very dangerous with our attacks and won.

In the semi-final against Israel we went in without any expectations, defended really well and won 18:13, 18:16 in two sets.

In the final against Brazil, they were clearly superior in the first set and the atmosphere was really heated. In the second set, we had 4 set points, which we unfortunately missed. That would have been the chance to win, but all in all we are very satisfied! Excitingly, this defeat almost felt like a victory.

This was a great test for the World Challenge and makes us want more. Even though the level will be a bit higher with Spain in top line-up, Italy and the Brazilians. We showed that we can keep up and withstand the pressure.

Now we are full of anticipation for Graz!”