Halkbank Ankara - Zenit Kazan (full match)

After upsetting last year’s gold medal winners Belogorie Belgorod in the Playoffs 1/12, Turkey’s Halkbank Ankara could not accomplish yet another mission impossible and despite scoring a 3:2 home win without Osmany Juantorena (25:23, 17:25, 25:18, 23:25, 16:14) in the second game of the Playoffs 1/6 had to bid farewell to the Champions League 2014/15 with Russia’s Zenit Kazan eventually securing their fifth straight appearance in the last round of Europe’s elite competition. A large crowd of 4500 fans came together on Wednesday night at Baskent Volleyball Hall in Turkey’s capital for the last match before the Final Four tournament scheduled for March 28-29 in Berlin. Tsvetan Sokolov scored 29 points for Halkbank, when 4 players of Kazan scored more then ten points (Leon - 19, Anderson - 18, Maxim Mikhaylov - 18 and Ashchev - 12). "My team really wanted to go to Berlin and make the Final Four", said Halkbank’s team manager Ahmet Kavaz. “Unfortunately we could not achieve our goal. We are very sad and upset at the moment. My players did their best tonight. We lost the ticket to the Finals but we got a lot of experience from this match. We are still a young team in this competition. We have showed very good performances for the last two, three seasons in the European Cups and we are happy with that. I want to thank once more all of our supporters and can promise that we will be doing better next year".

#TsvetanSokolov #WilfredoLeon #MaximMikhaylov #MatthewAnderson #ZenitKazan #HalkbankAnkara #ChampionsLeague201415