Tonight at 7 PM CET the semi-finals of the Under 13 European Championships in Zagreb will take place. Italy will face Spain while Germany will play against Türkiye. The match for the title will be played at the same time tomorrow.
Spain reached the penultimate stage undefeated after six matches and two stages of the group phase. Ladimir MAYOROV Roger QUESADA Renata SHYPHA Jiaqi GUO and Roc GILBERT overcame Germany (3-2) Bosnia and Herzegovina (5-0) and Moldova (5-0) in the opening stage. Without much trouble they also defeated Switzerland (5-0) but faced a tough challenge against Israel (3-2). However the real drama unfolded in the last match when Spain played against Hungary for a place in the semi-finals.Three out of five matches went the full distance including the final duel between MAYOROV and Lenard SZABO. The Hungarian player eventually won and despite Spain already securing 3 points and the overall victory Szabo and Mayorov fought fiercely until the last point.
The top-seeded Italy led by Danilo FASO and Francesco TREVISAN who have not lost a single individual match in both group phases faced some pressure in matches against Portugal (3-2) and Switzerland (3-2) but easily triumphed against Kosovo (5-0). In the second stage Italy defeated Sweden (3-2) and Ukraine (3-2).
Young Gioia PICU showed that she could also handle the pressure and recorded four out of four victories in both group stages.
The outcome of the standings in Group 2 remained unknown until the end. Despite suffering two defeats in two stages Germany advanced to the semi-finals. Jonathan GAISER Amelie JIA Lukas WANG Samuel KUHL and Anna WALTER lost to Spain (2-3) in the opening stage but bounced back by defeating Bosnia and Herzegovina (5-0) and Moldova (5-0). In the next stage they overcame Romania (4-1) but lost to Czechia (2-3).
Overall Czechia and Romania each lost only one match in the two stages highlighting the importance of each individual match in this system.
Türkiye’s Gorkem OCAL Buse KOCAK Nil BASARAN and Kenan KAHRAMAN beat Croatia (4-1) and Lithuania (4-1) but they suffered a loss to Hungary (2-3) in the opening stage. They faced challenges in both instances but emerged victorious against Poland and France (3-2) and easily defeated Bulgaria (5-0).
