Quick New: Semifinal edition. Slovenia fourth time in a row, stomps Poland in European Championship.

[19 Sept]

The final four of the European Championship, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia and Italy battle it out yesterday in Katowice.

Slovenia for the fourth time in a row beat Poland in European Championships. Previously, Poland has been beaten out by Slovenia 3 times in a row, including the 2015 edition, where Slovenia first won their silver medal in Sofia, Bulgaria, the 2017 edition where Poland held the games and Slovenia beat Poland during the playoff round, and the most recent edition in 2019 in semifinals, where it was held in Slovenia. 

Poland was powered and inspired by the fans in the first set of the game, stomping Slovenia 25 to 17 in the first set. Poland was able to serve a huge amount of pressure to Slovenia's reception lineup. Poland served 5 aces and Slovenia's reception was only able to receive 25 % positive and 10% excellent verse Poland's reception at 69% positive and 38% excellent. Poland was able to take advantage of Slovenia's poor reception, they made 4 blocks against Slovenia in the first set. However, this inspired the Slovenian's desire to fight back, with the back up setter Gregor Ropert starting in this set, Slovenia is able to more resilience against Poland. Slovenia took the second set in 30 to 32. This set Kovacic the libero took a lot more cover in the Slovenia reception, taking 14 out of the 24 serve that they receive in stead of 5 out of the 20 serve in the first. This was the key to Slovenia's resurgence during the second set, and Slovenia was able to turn more attacks into serves. During the three set, Poland lost a bit of concentration after a tough lost in the second set. Only scoring 10 points through attacks and one block, Slovenian are pumped in the his set, making only 6 errors in, including 5 serving errors and 1 attacking errors. Kurek only scored once in this set, and later in the fourth set, he was able to score.  The fourth set is definitely one of the most intensive set in the tournament, it took 57 minutes and 72 points scored to decide the winner of the match. Slovenia was able to soak up a lot of the serving pressure from Poland, they did not make any reception error. After a tight match at the tail end of the set, Slovenia is able to hold on and score on their serve. The top scorer of the match is Toncek Stern and Wilfredo Leon, scoring 20 points. Both teams have similar attacking efficiency, serving efficiency and reception accuracy with Poland having a upper hand in blocking, but ultimately the game is won by Slovenia, by working as a team and patiently against the volleyball giant, Poland.

In the other match up, Italy beat the reigning European champion Serbia, in a four set game. The young Italian team beat the experienced Serbian team, as they turn Serbian's strength, blocking, against themselves. Italy doubled the amount of blocking against Serbia, 15 to 7, which is a huge part of the reason that Italy was able to take on Serbia, With Michieletto hitting over the top of block and take charge of the offensive load for Italy, Michieletto was able to become the best attacker and scorer of the match. Michieletto scored 23 points with 18 attacks at 42.4 % attacking efficiency , with four blocks and once ace. The young Italian team was able to show a lot of maturity in their game, with really good ball control and concentration throughout the game. Serbia on other side, struggled with player selection. They started with Luburic, Ivovic and Lisniac, but they have to switch to Atanaseijevic, Krsmanovic and even the recently joined Petric in the game.

Later today, we will have the gold medal match between Italy and Slovenia, a rematch of the pool phase game, where Italy won in three set to zero and another rematch in the bronze medal match Serbia against Poland, which Poland took in 5.

#EuropeanChampionships2021 #Italy #Serbia #Slovenia #Poland #AlessandroMichieletto