World Champions Brazil brush aside Italy by posting 3-0 at FIVB Women’s Grand Prix
The 8-time World Champions Brazil are shaped up to add another Gold-Medal to their tally at the 2011 FIVB Grand Prix. Team Brazil opened the Final Round of the championship with an amazing win over Italy. They dominated the Italians by posting a 3-0 (25-16,
25-17, and 25-17) victory. The match was hosted in the Chinese city of Macau on Wednesday, August 24. The well-placed attacks and solid defence was the key of success for Brazil in the important match. Brazil bagged three points for finishing the match in
three sets.
Brazil started out with strong offensive attack and tried to influence the opponent in the early phase of the game. The powerful attack shots by Sheilla Castro worked magic for Brazil. She used the power of her forearms and put her team in the lead. In response,
the Italians made adjustments on their attacking strategy and managed to cut down the Brazilian lead to just three points after the first TTO. Brazilians had a fair idea of the type of counter-attack from Italy and they came up awith the ppropriate answer.
Fabiana Claudino and Thaisa Menezes put up a joint effort and dominated the rivals. The better combination of attack and defence enable Brazil to win the first set 25-16.
However, the Italian team did not give up the effort. They steered back into the match by good strike of Simona Gioli. Gradually, Italy seemed to pose a threat on South American side. Anyhow, thanks to Sheilla Castro who directed off the ball in rare gaps
and put her team back on track. Brazil answered the hard hitting of Italy and soon nullified their threats. Fabiana and Thaisa developed great chemistry between them and clinched success for Brazil in the second set.
Success in two consecutive sets allowed Brazil to enjoy a great rhythm and tone in third set. They kept the high momentum and give out their best in the third set. Italy resisted in full force but couldn’t stop Brazil anyway. South American successfully
covered the length of third set and secured third set as well. Victory graced Brazil in the opening match of Final Round of 2011 FIVB Grand Prix.
“Thank you Massimo for the compliments. I am very happy with my team. We played very well. Our serves, blocks and defence did a very good job. Tomorrow we have a hard match against Japan. Every day we have one final, and we have to play better and better
every day.” Said the Brazilian Coach José Roberto Guimarães
The Mentor of Italian side, Massimo Barbolini, congratulated Brazil for winning the match. He acknowledged that Brazil played better and deserved to win. He further added: “Today they have given us a lesson on volleyball. We must think about what we need
to do next. Today a lot of problems were made by the good game of Brazil, while some other situations were made by our mistakes. We played very badly and against Brazil we cannot play like this.”
Tags: