It was close, but after a thriller, our Red Dragons were left empty-handed. Against much stronger-thinking Germany, we led 2-0 in sets, but our eastern neighbours lived up to their name and eventually treated us to a sour 2-3 defeat.

After the firm defence against Serbia, our Red Dragons picked up the gauntlet without complexes against Germany, which already had two wins on its books. As many as four killblocks, two of them on supervedette Grözer, initially did not help us beyond 10-10, but then Deroo and Reggers increasingly took the upper hand offensively. Desmet and D'Heer threw in another ace for 20-14. At 23-17, the set win looked imminent, but storage cannon Karlitzek decided otherwise: 23-21. Delaying execution, Reggers made out at 25-22.

Apparently the loss of the first set had hit our eastern neighbours hard, because they collapsed like a pudding when Elias Thys dropped a series of vicious floatservices into their defence: 10-3. Mathijs Desmet fired another ace for a ten-point gap : 14-4. But with Germans, you are thus never done. At 18-12, they had almost halved their deficit. After a grandiose rally with saves by Ribbens and Reggers, 'Captain Sam' dashed the last German hopes in this set: 22-14 and 25-17.

Winning a third set is always the most difficult in such a close duel. And that proved again. Germany's coach changed as many as five basic players and it paid off. Tille and Schott immediately scored several aces: 2-6 and 5-10. The gap could not be closed, as Cox, Rotty and Van Hoyweghen were unable to do anything about it: 15-25.

Also in set four, German playmaker Tille immediately set the tone with an ace and an early 2-6 bonus. At 13-16, the chase stalled after a feathery net error on our side. Schott repeated his performance of four years ago at the European Championships in Brussels and proved to be a scourge for our block: 14-19. Yet we still threatened at 17-19, but the Spanish ref blundered by disallowing an underhand ball by Desmet: 17-21. Two killblocks by Reggers briefly brought tension at 22-23. Unfortunately, Grözer finished it off: 22-25

The tiebreak started excellently with fine scores from Deroo and Desmet for 6-3 and with ace Wout D'Heer made the teams turn at 8-5. Then Tille came up again with a couple of vicious serves and Grozer blocked as if he was far from 38: 10-12. The equaliser for 13-13 and also our last attack stranded in the German block... 12-15.