Luburic and Serbia Stun Netherlands 3-2 in Tampere

Serbia’s coach did not move on the bench. The scoreboard in the Tampere arena read 14-10 for the Netherlands in the third set, the Serbian volleyball team had already dropped the first two sets, and the match looked all but over before the real drama even started. Then something changed.

Serbia clawed the deficit back point by point, leveled at 22-22, and then watched the Dutch reach as many as four match points in a row. George Cretu’s team saved all four, forced extra points in the third set and eventually won it 30-28. That moment, as the rest of the match showed, broke the Dutch team. Serbia went on to take the remaining two sets as well and closed out a 3-2 win in the third round of Group C at the European Championship, played on September 14 in Tampere.

The hero of the night was Drazen Luburic. Kurir reports he finished the match with 38 points, while Sportissimo puts the number above 30, in any case the most on the court and enough to carry the attack through the entire comeback. The win took Serbia to a 2-1 record and third place in Group C. According to Kurir, Finland sits atop the table with a perfect 3-0 and eight points, Denmark is second with 2-1 and six points, Belgium has a game in hand at 1-1, while Estonia and the Netherlands are at the bottom. Sportissimo adds that Serbia has five points, one behind Denmark heading into the final two rounds of the group stage.

Head coach George Cretu addressed the criticism that had followed the national team in the preceding days, speaking to RTS after the match.

Maybe I wasn’t born in your country, but this is still my team. I think everyone can confirm that from the first moment I arrived, I tried to give everything I know about volleyball, together with my coaching staff. I support everything being done around this team and for this team.

The Romanian coach added that 28 years on the bench have taught him how to handle pressure and criticism.

I’ve been doing this job for 28 years now. If I don’t know that things like this sometimes come back at you like a boomerang, then I need to quit this job. But I still love it.

Cretu described the comeback against the Netherlands as an important step out of the slump the national team fell into after the loss to Finland.

We were in hell and we managed to pull ourselves out, but there’s still a part of the road ahead of us. The most important thing is that the guys can take the lead. When something gets under your skin, or the opponents make mistakes and start provoking, it can end badly for them. Today it ended badly for them. I think they added fuel to the fire and the guys came back into the game.

Captain Nikola Jovovic also commented after the match on the behavior of the Dutch players on court, which, in his words, was far from sportsmanlike.

When Does Serbia Play Next?

Serbia now faces the most important test of this stage of the championship. After a grinding 3-1 win over Estonia and the drama against the Netherlands, next up is Denmark, on Wednesday, September 16, starting at 4 p.m. local time, again in Tampere. Four teams advance from Group C, and Serbia goes into that match a point behind its rival, which makes it practically a must-win for a high finish in the group.

What Serbia showed in that third set is worth more than any standings table: a team that saves four match points in a row is not playing out of fear, but out of something that is hard to coach. Cretu was right to call it hell behind them, but the real test comes Wednesday against Denmark, and that is where it will become clear whether Tampere was the start of a turnaround or just one good night.