THE youth movement of Bulgaria wasted no time introducing itself in the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship, stunning Germany, 40-38, 25-22, 25-20, on Saturday night at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Nikolov brothers Aleksandar and Simeon led the world No. 16 Bulgarians in their upset of the No. 8 Germans to pick up the full three points to start their Pool E campaign.
Aleksandar, who is just 21, unloaded 28 points on 25 spikes, two blocks, and an ace while his younger brother Simeon, 18, orchestrated the offense with a 33.75 percent setting efficiency while also scoring nine points on seven attacks and two aces.
“Really happy, really proud of the team. We had a great performance today. Feeling a little tired, it felt like a five-set game even though it was only just three sets because of that first set that you talked about but again super proud of the team,” said Aleksandar after the one-hour, 48-minute battle.
The first set gave the crowd all the feelings - from excitement to nervousness - as it went on and on and seemed unending.
But the Bulgarians, despite having an average age of 23.2, showed maturity beyond their years and got the final hits that ended the 43-minute marathon first frame.
With Germany holding a 38-37 set point, its 11th of the period, Martin Atanasov detonated a crosscourt hit to tie the game. The Germans then committed a costly attack error before Aleksandar hammered a strong pipe attack for the 40-38 opener.
“I’m happy because it’s a good result but it’s only the first match, we know that when you are in a four-team pool, you need to play every match like the Final and we should instill in our minds that this is the way to play in this competition,“ said Bulgaria head coach Gianlorenzo Blengini, noting that this was just the start.
Bulgaria will face world No. 6 Slovenia on Monday, 5:30 p.m., while Germany will look to enter the win column against No. 27 Chile earlier at 1:30 p.m.
The 40-year-old György Grozer still paced the Germans with 13 points spread through seven attacks, three blocks, and three aces.
Anton Brehme added 11 points while Tobias Krick also got 10 in the losing cause.
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