Volleyball: Nations League, Italy beats Holland and returns to the semifinals after 8 years

Italy-Netherlands 3-1 (21-25, 25-22, 25-13, 25-22) After 8 years of fasting and abstinence, Italy returns to a Nations League semifinal (previously it was called the World League) and does so with an evening of suffering, but also of great empathy with its audience, in what becomes an evening party. De Giorgi for this first “Italian” of his national team sends Giannelli diagonally to the striker Romanò, Russo and Anzani central, Michieletto and Lavia martelli, Balaso free. Roberto Piazza responds with a Netherlands that focuses his game a lot on Nimir Abdel Aziz, who until this year was the protagonist of the Super League championship and who recently emigrated to Turkey. Italy starts off well with the roar of the public, but in the middle of the set is joined by a Holland that focuses a lot on the joke and that puts the blues in difficulty. With the inaccurate reception even the attack suffers and Nimir and associates score the break that gives him the first set.

Shock

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For Italy it is like an electro shock and in the second set the music changes radically, the tension of the home debut melts and Italy goes to take the second part even though the oranges score a dangerous comeback. But with a Romanò with a very heavy hand in batting, the Azzurri reached a draw. In the third set the suffering lasts until halfway then Giannelli and his teammates relax and go to win another set that brings them closer to winning the match. De Giorgi also throws Galassi into the fray instead of Anzani. Italy finds the right vein, but already knows that even in the fourth set they will have to deal with a Netherlands that does not want to give up anything and that does everything to ruin the party at the blue wave. Ivan Zaytsev also enters the field, greeted by a roar from the public, then the technical difference between the two teams comes to the surface and the Azzurri go to take that victory that is worth the semifinal 8 years after the last time, in 2014 Azzurri di Berruto finished in third place. Saturday evening (9 pm) on the road to Italy there will be the winner between France and Japan (without Ishikawa), who play on Thursday afternoon. The United States by beating Brazil 3-1 became the first semi-finalist and will meet the winner of Poland-Iran.