Italy edges out Slovakia to advance to semi-finals of European Qualifiers – Volleyball news
Italy posted 3-0 (25-23, 25-13, 25-22) win over Slovakia at the Arena Armeec competition hall in Sofia, Bulgaria on Friday.
Victory enabled Italy to reserve a berth in the next round of 2012 European Men’s Olympic Qualification Tournament. Slovakia, on the other hand, lost the match and were disqualified. Italy remained undefeated in Pool I and finished the preliminaries with
3-0 record.
Italian success in the third match was mainly credited to duo of Luigi Mastrangelo and Alessandro Fei. They did amazingly well and added nine points each. Slovakia’s Emanuel Kohut and Peter Michalovic struggled for their team and added 8 points apiece.
In the first set of the match, Slovakia managed to take lead but it was the first and only time that Italy trailed behind in opening stanza. Italy led the scores at first mandatory stop 8-7 and improved to 16-14 at the second technical timeout. Slovakian
hitters used different tactics and poked many balls but Italy did not allow the rivals to come up. Italy emerged successful by closing first set with two-point lead at 25-23.
Despite a lot of efforts, Slovakia failed to overcome Italy in first set. As a result, Slovakian players seemed to have lost determination. They offered not much resistance to Italy in the second set and suffered frequent set-backs. Italians took full advantage
of the situation and added quick points. Eventually, second set also came successful and Italy extended its lead to 2-0.
With two sets in hand, Italy hit confidently in third set and promptly moved to 8-4 lead. Slovakian team could not defend in third set either and dropped the decision.
Italian counterpart Mauro Berruto added, “We knew that we were facing an efficient team with a fighting spirit. I agree that winning the first set was quite important. Our new target is to qualify for the final. I am sure that we have the potential to do
it, because I have 12 completely ready players, who can win tough matches and be champions.”
“I felt that our team entered the game with more respect for Italy than it normally should,” Stefan Chrtiansky, head coach of Slovakia, said. “We did not believe that we could win this match. We made a lot of mistakes and could not score enough.”
Captain of the Slovakian team Michal Masny admitted that they could not match their performance with Italy. In his view, the match result became evident in the first set when their efforts went futile. However, he was happy that his team tried the best to
overcome the powerhouse Italy.
Italy will now take on Serbia in the second semi-final match on Saturday.
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