Italy - Russia (full match)

Yesterday's game between Russia and Italy (Grand Champions Cup 2013). The key to the win by Italy was the team spirit and team play. Italy’s attack was divided into four players: Ivan Zaytsev (18 points in attack, 20 in general), Filippo Lanza (13 in attack, 13 in general), Emanuele Birarelli (6 in attack, 9 in general) and Jiri Kovar (8 in attack, 9 in general). On the opposite side of the net the best scorer was Dmitriy Muserskiy, who scored 17 points, including 16 from attack. Italy’s captain was extremely pleased with his side, noting that they made less mistakes in this match, and that’s what made the difference. Italy will face Iran on Wednesday, while Russia will take on host team Japan. Emanuele Birarelli said: "I’m really proud of my team. We deserve this victory against the European champions, a great team like Russia. We had some new players on this team, our wing spikers are young. I’m really happy that we could get this great victory for them. We had good spiking, and made less mistakes than Russia, and that was the key to this victory. We know it was a strange match, the first match of this tournament. But we played in the right way and I’m happy".

#IvanZaytsevTheTsar #DmitriyMuserskiy #Italy #Russia #GrandChampionsCup2013