The blue women for the European Championships
The blue women for the European Championships
Italy coach Davide Mazzanti has chosen the 14 athletes who will take part in the women’s volleyball European Championships scheduled in Italy, Estonia, Germany and Belgium from Aug. 15 to Sept. 3. The Azzurre will assemble on Sunday, Aug. 13, in Verona before opening the continental event against Romania on Aug. 15 in the spectacular setting of Verona’s Arena (8 p.m.).
Below is the list of the Azzurri with jersey numbers.
Dribblers: 8 Alessia Orro 4 Francesca Bosio
Setter: 17 Myriam Sylla (C) 14 Elena Pietrini 21 Loveth Omoruyi 2 Alice Degradi
Opposites: 15 Sylvia Nwakalor 18 Paola Egonu 24 Ekaterina Antropova
Central: 1 Marina Lubian 11 Anna Danesi 19 Federica Squarcini
Freely: 7 Eleonora Fersino 20 Beatrice Parrocchiale
In case of failure to complete the process of obtaining Italian citizenship, in time for inclusion in the list of 14, the athlete Ekaterina Antropova will be replaced before the start of the European Championship.
“The first thing I had in mind was to feed the balance found in the VNL,” Mazzanti told federvolley.it, “because all the thoughts done in the winter led me to choices. And the choice of these 14 is the result of this will, strengthened by the important growth shown by the girls who played the VNL during the two collegials in Florence. We will have three central players because of what happened to Alessia Mazzaro, who unfortunately is not available. We could count on the wild card Antropova, waiting for the bureaucratic process to be completed to obtain citizenship. However, I would like to emphasize that we will not make many experiments and in general the way we will start in Verona will be the way we will play the European Championships. In this last collegiate we grew a lot in the point phase and at least as far as batting is concerned, and the wall and defense phase. We have to improve in counterattack, trying to be more incisive, while on the ball change we are working more and it will be necessary to improve because our system has to provide for some things that we have not yet developed as we would have liked. Perhaps the first part of the European Championship will serve us precisely to perfect this aspect of the game. Finally, I want to thank all the girls who have been part of this project and who will not be at the European: I am referring to Battistoni, Malual, D’Odorico, Linda Nwakalor, Gennari, Villani and Bosetti. All of them contributed to the creation of an important team soul until the last day of training. It is true that having only now communicated the names of the 14 might have generated some tension, but I think it also created a positive effect that allowed us to work well, carefully and in a good atmosphere.”
Italy and Romania have been placed in Group B with Bulgaria, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
