The world of sports can be very cruel at times. Take Poland’s current World Champions Boys’ U19 team. After winning it all in 2015, they get to go home empty handed in 2017, being eliminated without a single win and being the last team in their pool.
It wasn’t a simple elimination though, as life decided to go medieval on the Polish team. Needing just a single point to advance to the round of 16, they faced France in a game that turned out to be a real war. They won the first set, 25-23, went on to lose the next two frames, and lost the fourth and deciding set in an unbelievable 40-38 score.
Polish coach, Maciej Zendel, and team captain, Szymon Jezierski, had some heartfelt words about the whole situation:
Maciej Zendel: “This is sport. Today we tried but we lost again. We played much better. We made some mistakes but we tried our best. The French team was better in this game and that is why they won. It is a very difficult situation when you lose day by day. For the players it is very difficult because you have in your head that you lost yesterday and then you lose again today. When you lose so many matches, it gets very hard to get up and play the next day.
Szymon Jezierski: “It was a good match but we lost when things turned serious in the end. We now have no chance to go to the next round. We are very disappointed because we are here to win the championship. We prepared well for two months before coming here, but I do not know what happened and we are very disappointed.”
We can only wish these boys a safe trip back home and that they continue to develop their game and skills with happiness, because in sport, sadly, some teams have to lose in order for some to win.
Meanwhile, current silver medalists Argentina only lost one game in the first round of play, while last tournaments bronze medalists Iran swept its 4 games, losing only two sets in the way.
Here is the full recap from group play and the match ups for the round of 16.
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