Tokyo 2020, Italy-Poland 0-3: first knockout for the Azzurri

After the debut victory against Canada, the Italy of men’s volleyball was defeated by Poland 3-0 (25-20, 26-24, 25-20) in the second match of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic tournament. Blengini did not manage to express themselves on good levels, struggling in reception and consequently failing to develop a good offensive maneuver. Now it will be important to immediately shift the focus to the next match that will see Italy, on Wednesday 28 July, face the hosts of Japan at 12.40 Italian (19.40 local time) .The key moment of the match with Poland was probably the second. set, when the Azzurri could have reversed the inertia of the match; the Poles in the final, on the other hand, got the advantage and this directed the race in the tracks wanted by them. Blengini who, as known, had to renounce Simone Giannelli due to a muscle strain in his right quadriceps, lined up Sbertoli in the dribble, Zaytsev opposite, Michieletto and Juantorena the spikers, Anzani and Galassi central, Colaci free. Heynen relied on Drzyzga in dribbling, Kurek opposing, Leon and Sliwka spikers, Bieniek and Nowakowsi central. “Simone’s absence may have destabilized us for a moment, but we are twelve players who are each trying to make their own contribution and Ricky (Sbertoli, ed) played a good game – in Zaytsev’s words -. No one is a replacement, everyone we are the twelfth of an entire team. The thing that did not work is that we did not know how to take advantage of the few opportunities that a great team like Poland had given us. Half of the first set comes to mind, as well as the final of the according to when various counterattacks could be better exploited. We need to take care of the details better, especially against formations of this level “. “I believe that the bulk of the difference was technical, the first set in particular was marked by a big gap in the fundamental of serve / reception – it is the analysis of coach Blengini-. We probably served better than Canada, but against a team like Poland good jokes are not enough and their strikers had an easy life. On the contrary we were forced to play with the ball away from the net and consequently our ball change was affected. After the first set we grew, however, we struggled to take measures on other types of serve, you cannot be satisfied with playing with the ball far from the net. We need to be more precise on these situations and in counterattack. “