Italy plays poker, in a comeback they also beat Brazil 3-2 (17-25 25-15 22-25 25-17 15-13), extinguishing the smiles and songs of the thousands of green and gold fans who, as we have learned over 30 years ago at the time of the first world championship triumph, they crowded the Maracanazinho on important occasions.
Ferdinando De Giorgi’s Azzurri aim to secure qualification for Paris 2024 as soon as possible, which they failed to achieve last October on the same pitch. The ticket to the Games is really closer after the 4 victories out of 4 races won in this first week, which raise her to first place in the VNL rankings.
The match against Brazil, as often happens, was a long, spectacular and exciting match. A meeting in which the exaltation of one sextet alternated with the depression of the other. A match that at the third set well advanced at 1-1 14-7 seemed destined to end up in the hands of the home sextet.Then De Giorgi, confirming himself as the confident “helmsman”, who has demonstrated his successes in the last 3 seasons by winning one European title after the other (and achieving a silver two years later) and a world title, took a risk, playing the double card of youth, with the insertion of Luca Porro in place 4 and Alessandro Bovolenta on the diagonal, removing Lavia and Romanò. And the wind has changed, because the two twenty-year-olds brought that enthusiasm and physical freshness, which the three races in 4 days had taken away from part of the training.
Giannelli immediately understood what his coach wanted to change and began to serve the kids, insisting on them even when the executions were not perfect. In the meantime Michieletto, a veteran who will be 23 years old only in December, took to the stage of the competition, doing everything well, very well indeed. And it is no coincidence that it was he who played the triumphal march until the tie-break reached 15-13.
Italy won with great merit, but also thanks to a sensational refereeing oversight by the Frenchman Collados, who on the second match point prematurely blew a point in favor of the hosts, on a green and gold attack that De Giorgi’s team would probably never have recovered, but which had not yet touched the ground.
Scoreboard Brazil-Italy 2-3 (25-17 15-25 25-22 17-25 13-25)
