Volleyball: Nations League, Italy suffers another defeat against the United States

United States-Italy 3-0 (25-15, 25-18, 25-19) Another severe defeat for De Giorgi’s Italy in the second round of the Nations League in Ottawa. The world champion team (here, however, there were only two of the 7 world champions) could not keep up with the pace of the opponents who showed up in Canada with all the best with the intention of wanting to use this event to collect very important ranking points for the 2024 Olympic qualification in Paris. Thus, the blue team has never been hit and sunk in the first set by the stars and stripes jokes. From Anderson (ex Perugia, in the last season in St. Petersburg) down the American hitters have caused craters in the blue defense, so large as not to provide the setter on duty the opportunity to play again. So there was almost no match: the difference shown on the pitch was too much and Italy also did less than its current possibilities. As already happened with Argentina, they got confused, failing to play their own game. Squinzano’s coach tried to change the cards on the table a bit, changing the hammers and changing the central players and also changing the setter-opposite diagonal at times, but there was nothing to do. Even the coach changed his attitude during the race, first severe and then more lenient with his team, openly uncomfortable with a much stronger opponent, both technically and mentally.

Two races

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After these two knockouts, Italy now has to start scoring to keep qualifying for the final eight in Gdańsk as an objective, a feat that is anything but obvious today. The Azzurri face Germany on Thursday (8.30 pm), while the closing is with the Cuba team (at 7 pm) on Saturday. Two tests to also understand what Italy is made of in the face of difficulties.