Ortigia tried, with courage and openly, but beating this Recco, at the moment, is not possible. The Italian champions put their strength and speed into the water and conquered the “Caldarella”, qualifying for the championship final for the 18th consecutive time. Piccardo’s men play a good game, especially on an offensive level, but suffer in defence, particularly against even men, unable to contain the attack of the Recchelini, who turn the ball over very quickly and then strike taking advantage of the tiredness of the green and white defenders.
Ortigia, compared to game 1, significantly improved their percentages both with man down and man up, but struggled when the guests picked up the pace. The gap in the final score is the result of Recco’s two devastating outbursts: in the first half, which started with a clear 3-0 and ended with the Ligurians ahead 4-1; and at the start of the third half, when a 4-0 run brought Di Fulvio and his teammates to 11-4 and inhibited the hopes of a comeback for Ortigia, who had ended the first half of the match by 3 goals (4-7). competition. The green-and-whites, however, reacted proudly by reducing the deficit again with a brace from Ferrero, author of a good performance, and a goal from La Rosa.
In the last 8 minutes, two goals from Inaba, one of the best today, resulted in a 5-1 run and brought Ortigia to 9-12. Recco, however, is patient and waits for the right moment to accelerate again. The wild Zalanki kicks off a new Ligurian blaze, with a 6-2 run that definitively extinguishes the match. It ends 18-11 for Recco, but Ortigia didn’t disfigure themselves, especially in terms of attitude.
At the end of the match, coach Stefano Piccardo analyzes his team’s performance: “Today we did well in the offensive phase, producing a lot of play and scoring eleven goals against Recco, which is a lot. The defensive part, however, was bad. Unfortunately, sometimes, playing against them leads you to arrive tired at the moments when you should put your arm and today, on many occasions, we conceded goals due to tiredness and because we are struggling. Let’s not forget, however, that Recco, just three days ago, in the Champions League, doubled the Croatian champions Jadran, beating them 18-9. Therefore, we must understand well what we are talking about. The quality of their players is very high”.
The decisive moments today were the first half and the beginning of the third, when Recco achieved two important partials, 4-1 and 4-0: “I called time out – recalls Piccardo – to try, as they say, to close ranks. And I must say that it was a fruitful time-out, because then I think we had a 5-1 partial in our favor, which against them is a lot. I’m sorry for the many goals conceded, because 18 is objectively a lot, but today too we tried to put everything we had into it and I have to thank my players for this. As far as we physically managed, we did what we could, then there was a bit of confusion. I would say that I’m still happy with my team, I liked the attitude”.
The green and white coach has his sights set, with confidence, on the next important match, namely the final for 3rd place against the winner of the match between Brescia and Savona: “Now we will have to start working for the final for third and fourth place, where we will try to play our chances. We demonstrated with the results that we played on equal terms with the other teams. Then you win or lose by one goal, but the level among the top teams is now this. Only Recco has a history of its own”.
