MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. Players of the Russian national team need changing their game at the 2019 Women’s European Volleyball Championship to achieve a positive result, Alexander Yaremenko, secretary general of the Russian Volleyball Federation (RVF), told TASS on Wednesday.

"We saw them having difficulties, which are objective," Yaremenko said. "We have lost [Irina] Fetisova, who is one of the key players in our team. This may turn into a huge loss."

"We have a chance now to straighten out the game and show a good result," Yaremenko stated. "But many questions remain unanswered after what we saw in the match with Germany." 

The 2019 Women’s European Volleyball Championship kicked off last Friday and the Russian team is currently third in its Pool D with seven points after defeating Belarus (3-0) and Switzerland (3-0), but then losing to Germany (2-3). Russia is playing its next match on Wednesday, August 28, against Spain.

The CEV (European Volleyball Confederation) European Volleyball Championship tournaments have been held once in every two years since 1975.

The 2019 Women’s European Volleyball Championship is the first ever to be hosted by four European countries, namely Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Slovakia.

This year the format of the tournament, which runs between August 23 and September 8, has been expanded from 16 to 24 national teams participating in the event. The teams were divided into four groups of six teams each.

The Russian women’s team, which failed to clear the quarterfinals stage at the European championship in 2017 (losing 0-3 to Turkey), was drawn into Pool D for this year’s tournament alongside with the national squads from Slovakia, Germany, Belarus, Spain and Switzerland. Group stage matches of the teams from Pool D are played in Bratislava.

In all, the Russian team won the Women’s European Volleyball Championship six times and packed the bronze of three more tournaments. The winner of the 2017 CEV Women’s European Volleyball Championship is the Serbian team.