Victorious! The young Italians raise from the ashes.

[20 Sept]

Italian men team along with the Italian women team won the European championships. Last time, both men and women's team won at the same edition of the European championship happened in 2019, where Serbia men's and women's team won. Poland won against the Serbian team and took home bronze again in European championship.

Italy beat Slovenia in a rematch of the pool phase game, but this time around it took Italy 5 sets to win the game. Slovenia after a very slow start the in the pool phase losing to Czech Republic and then lost to Italy in straight set has absolutely bounced back from the slump, winning Czech republic in the rematch and win against Poland fourth straight time in the European championship. 

The match statistically favors Italy, Italy was able to serve and block more than Slovenia. Italy served 12 ace out of 106 serves (2.4 ace per set) verse 9 ace out of 102 serves from Slovenia (1.8 ace per set) and Italy blocked 10 times (2 block per set) verses 8 times from Slovenia(1.6 block per set). Italy was able to attack more and attack more efficient as well. 59 attacks from Italy at 32.8% attack efficiency verse  49 attacks from Slovenia at 25.6% attack efficiency. However, Italy gave away 25 serving errors (-12.3% serving efficiency) to Slovenia and Slovenia only give away 16 serving error to Italy (-6.86% serving efficiency). Ultimately, Italy is better overall this game, they were able to defend and slow down attacks from the Slovenia, which gave them the edge in the game.

The top scorer of the game is Daniele Lavia, scoring 21 points with 16 attacks (3.2 attack per set) at 31.4% attack efficiency with 2 blocks and 3 aces. However, the surprise of the day is the opposite from Italy who enter the match in set 4, Yuri Romano. Yuri Romano came from Italy's Serie A2 league, and he was not on the radar that he will be a part of the Italian team, he played a big role in the latter sets, where he score 9 attacks out 10 attempts with no error at 90% attack efficiency (4.5 attacks per set) and one ace. 

Italy has been struggling through the opposite slot with Pinali and Romano being unstable throughout the game, however, the wing spikers Michieletto and Lavia has been taking loads off the opposite, which has lessen the impact from the lack of production from the opposite slot. As well as their top setter, Ginnelli, feeding attackers a lot of great set and played many great games against good blocking teams like Serbia.

Slovenia's top scorer is middle blocker Alen Pajenk, scored 16 points with 11 attacks (2.2 attack per set) at 58.8 % attack efficiency, 4 blocks (0.8 blocks per set) and 1 ace. Toncek Stern this time around struggled to hit against the block from Italy, scored only 10 points from attack and got blocked 5 times and 2 errors out of 31 attempts. Gregor Ropret started this games after an excellent performed in the match against Poland.

Congratulation to Italy for taking home the gold medal along with the women's teams. Also, congratulations to Slovenia for taking home the silver again the European Championships,

#EuropeanChampionships2021