Russia defeats Argentina in Volleyball Men’s World Championship
Russia thrashed Argentina at the Mandela Arena in Florence in the last match of Group P of the 2010 Federation of International Volley Ball Men's World Championship. Russia’s win has confirmed them of a place in the 5-8 categorization part of the championship
which would take place in Modena. Meanwhile, the loosing Argentinean team will have to stay and play in the 9-12 rounds.
Maxim Mikhailov played superbly to score 13 individual points, leading the way for the Russians. However, he was not the only inspirational Russian player as Dmitry Muserskiy scored 9 very important points with 3 classic aces.
Out of the lot, Argentina really had just one player, Facundo Conte, who scored an individual high of 11 points. In the defence, Russia had an upper hand of 8 blocks to Argentina’s 3. Moreover, the Russians had more aces with 7 as compared to only 4 by the
Argentineans. In reality, the Russian made the real difference with a relatively low number of 15 unforced errors, whereas on the other hand, Argentina were sloppy and ended up making 24 unforced errors.
Russia experienced a quick and impactful start and put the pressure on Argentina from the beginning. By the time the first technical time out took place, the Russians were leading 8-5.
However, Federico Pereira executed 2 brilliant aces which equalled the scores. Russia kept taking the lead with Argentina’s Facundo picking up points at crucial moments of the game mainly through his light blocks. Only Russia kept replying the blocks with
classy blocks themselves.
As the final moments of the set arrived, the gap was not too large. At this moment, Luciano De Cecco, much to the delight of the Russian fans, served a couple of faults handing the set to Russia at 25-22.
The first set encouraged Russia quite a bit which has been ranked as the second best team in the world. Out of the blue, it felt as if the Russians were badly affected by their previous day’s horrific defeat at the hands of the Serbians. In the mean time,
Argentina raced to a lead of 8-4.
Soon after, Russian players Mikhaylov and Muserkiy controlled the entire game. Their coordination was simply breathtaking as they woke the Russian team with their rocket like spikes and their deft touches. They gradually drove Russia to a healthy lead of
21-16. Yuri Berezhko with a couple of final sublime touches closed the second set with a convincing score line of 25-17.
When the third set commenced, it practically looked like a one-sided affair from the beginning. But nevertheless, it had to be played, which gave the Argentineans the opportunity to bounce back. It looked highly unlikely though. Russia was just in great
form.
The excited crowd hoped that a miracle would happen and the match would go on for one more set. It was not to be as Berezhko with his hands of steel blocked some deadly spikes and put the match almost in the pockets of the Russians. The initial time out
saw a score difference of four points with Russia in the lead.
However, by the next gap, the comparison in scores was now embarrassing as the Russians were leading by a total of 10 points. Obviously from there on in, Russia cruised to victory.
So Russia, courtesy of Maxim Mikhailov and Muserkiy Russia thrashed Argentina to move on in the championships and made it out of the group stages, getting a step closer to the title.
Tags: