The Italian CT CT: “The girls have never broken down and remained humble. It’s the right approach”
“I relived the 1990 Rio semifinal with the men’s national team. A very similar game, with the same result as 3-2 and the same ending, 15-13 at the tie-break”. Smiling but tried, Julio Velasco thus summarizes the over two hours of the game that push Italy to the World Cup final scheduled today at 2.30 pm.
Velasco, a game that seemed bewitched. Did you expect to suffer so much?
“Of course, I always repeat it to my team. We cannot think that everything will always be fine, as happened last year. We must be aware that we will have very difficult games that can also end 32-30 at the Tie-break. Especially with teams such as Brazil. The team of Ze Roberto has played an extraordinary meeting”.
It was not one of the best performances of his Italy. How come?
“Brazil walked, defended, put us in difficulty with the joke. And then in attack Gabi did incredible things. Yet, Italy was cheering. This means that one of the characteristics of this team is that it never gives up. Dowers who was rewarded with a great result”.
You also experienced complicated moments during the game. What happened?
“Fahr had a problem during the heating on the right ankle, then during the first set the same thing happened to Orro. If we add the difficulties he had at the beginning of the match from Egonu, the girls were good not to break up.”
Are you happy with the test of maturity and mental solidity of the blue?
“Of course. It is the right approach. If we are presumptuous and we think we are stronger, that we win, it is the end. We must continue to be humble as we have been to date. The problem is the outline, it is the Italian sports culture”.
What do you refer to?
«We cannot think that when you win, we are the strongest and when you lose there is nothing good, it’s all a disaster. When you win, it can also happen to lose. It is not that if someone has been successful before, he will have more chance of repeating himself. Indeed, sometimes it is more difficult. ”
What words told the girls before the semifinal?
«I simply reminded them that they pushed all summer to training as much as possible. For this, if the result had not been the one hoped for, they would have had nothing to reproach because the other national teams work well. For example, Brazil, a country with a great volleyball culture and an extraordinary technician like Ze Roberto. Let’s not forget that sooner or later Russia will also return, the United States began an important generational change in view of the Los Angeles games where they will return very competitive. And in the final there will be Turkey, who worked as well as us. We don’t think that the real ending was this because we could hurt us very much ».
Against Brazil he used many players from the bench. Satisfied with their performance?
“It is the strength of Italy, of this group of players: anyone who enters the field brings his contribution. But be careful, he may not be enough. It also takes a technical staff who has the courage to insert younger girls, and with little experience at these levels”.
The Brazil taboo fell to a world championship in the sixth attempt …
“The Brazil taboo will always exist. It is true, a negative strip with them has been interrupted, but when we find them they have recovered a player like Ana Cristina. So they will be even stronger”.
We saw her live the game intensely also with the referees. Was there something that annoyed him?
“I never protest, but when I saw from the Brazil bench who continually tried to influence the work of the referees I made myself heard. Now, however, let’s think of Turkey”.
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