With yesterday's victory against the No. 1 team in the world - Poland, the Bulgarian national team secured its best performance in the League of Nations since the tournament's inception, even before playing its last match of the preliminary phase, Sportal.bg reported.
Yesterday's success was No. 6 for the “lions“ in this year's edition of the League of Nations, which was founded as such in 2018, when it inherited the World League. In the first edition of the League of Nations, Bulgaria also achieved six victories, but then they came in 15 matches, since in the early years the format was such that each team played one match against every other team. Then Bulgaria took 11th place in the final standings with a balance of 6 wins, 9 losses and 17 points.
At the moment, before their last match, Bulgaria also has 6 wins and 17 points, but only 5 losses, since in the current format the teams play fewer matches in the preliminary phase. Purely in percentage terms in 2018 the “lions“, then led by Plamen Konstantinov, won 40% of their matches, and now they have guaranteed themselves a success rate of at least 50% in the preliminary phase.
In their last match, Bulgaria will face the team of Iran, which has 5 wins and 6 losses since the beginning of the tournament. The match is today at 18:00 Bulgarian time at “Ergo Arena“ in Gdansk, Poland. If successful and the remaining matches on the last day of the preliminary phase go well, Bulgaria will be able to qualify for the Nations League finals for the first time, which will be played in Ningbo, China, between July 30 and August 3.