Italy coach Mauro Berruto regrets losing Olympic slot to Poland – London Olympics 2012
The upcoming 2012 Summer Olympic event in London is the latest buzz in the sports world. The volleyball tournament is an essential part of the Olympic Games. The qualification process for the Olympic competition is underway since last year.
The Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) and various other regional volleyball federations organised different qualification tournaments in order to send the best teams in the Olympic event. The qualification process is still on and it will continue
until June.
The 2011 FIVB Men’s World Cup served as the Olympic qualification tournament. National volleyball teams of 12 countries entered the competition and vied for the three Olympic tickets. At the end of World Cup, Russia, Poland, and Brazil emerged as the top
teams of the competition and reserved their Olympic berths.
Team Italia finished fourth in the World Cup and narrowly missed out on a podium place and an Olympic berth to Poland on account of low set ratio.
Quite recently, the 42-year-old Italian coach Mauro Berruto shared his thoughts and regrets of losing the Olympic slot via FIVB World Cup.
He blamed the pressure of the occasion as a central factor to that failure. He stated, “Tension remained high during the tournament because we won the silver medal at the European Championships. We had a great desire to do well, but often the urge paralyzes
us and this happened against Poland.”
Burreto further added, “Coach Anastasi (Berruto’s predecessor and Poland coach) took advantage of our failings and did very well making the right changes. His athletes were just as smart to implement his scheme.”
Italy has clearly dropped the chance of earning Olympic ticket through World Cup but the coach said that his side is now totally focused on reaching the London 2012 Olympic Games. He urged his players that they must improve and take advantage of any opportunity
created in the future.
Berruto added that if he would get a chance to replay any of the matches, he would surely “choose Poland v Italy, precisely, the second part of the match.”
In fact, Italy dropped a five-set match to Poland in the fourth round of World Cup in Japan, which proved to be a great loss for Italy and at the same time Poland used it to get to the Olympics.
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