YUGOSLAVIA - Italy 3-0

Ostrava, CZECH REPUBLIC, September 16 (worldvolleyball.com) - Yugoslavia is the new Men's Senior European Volleyball Champion. In Ostrava, Czech Republic, the Olympic winner took over the title from defending champion Italy in the final after a straight sets victory (3-0: 25-21, 25-18, 25-20). From the start of the match the Yugo's were the Kings of the court in the Vitkovice Stadium. After Yugoslavia claimed some high positions during previous events, it was the first ever European title.

In the final of European Championship, the two best teams in the world faced each other. Like in the semi-final of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Yugoslavia was simply the best.

'After two years of playing with the new rally point system, we finally found out how to beat everyone', Yugoslavian head-coach Zoran Gajic said.

He was right with this statement after the final, which was attended by Mr. Andric, the Minister of Sport of Yugoslavia. The extremely strong and risky serves and the magnificent blocks of the Yugoslavian players brought them the victory.

The Italian head-coach Andrea Anastasi did everything he could. He used all his twelve players but nobody was able to break the Yugoslavian spirit. Ivan Miljkovic was with 16 points the best scorer of the match and received the award of best scorer of the tournament (156 points). It was also no surprise that he was awarded as Most Valuable player in this European Championship. Furthermore, setter Nikola Grbic played a tremendous event. Head-coach Gajic could even keep star attacker Vladimir Grbic, who underwent knee surgery last month, on the bench.

YUGOSLAVIA'S SQUAD - WINNER OF GOLD MEDAL: Rajko JOKANOVIC, Goran MARIC, Edin SKORIC, Slobodan BOSKAN, Nikola GRBIC, Djula MESTER, Vladimir GRBIC, Vasa MIJIC, Andrija GERIC, Goran VUJEVIC, Ivan MILJKOVIC, Igor VUSUROVIC. Coach: Zoran Gajic.

Euro 2001 final standings

1. YUGOSLAVIA
2. Italy
3. Russia
4. Czech Republic
5. Poland
6. Bulgaria
7. France
8. Netherlands