Italvolley is headed to the finals at the European Championships: For Julio Velasco, it’s already “us against everyone”
Italy is in the final of the European Championships. At the Sinan Erdem Sports Hall in Istanbul, Julio Velasco’s Azzurre defeated Poland 3-1 (25-19, 25-19, 21-25, 25-16) and earned the right to compete for the continental title tomorrow against Turkey (6:00 p.m. Italian time), which defeated Serbia 3-0 in 86 minutes in the first semifinal of the day. For the Italian women’s volleyball team, this will be the sixth European final in its history, following those played in 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2021. Five years after winning gold in Belgrade against Serbia, the national team is back in the running for the continental title, having gone undefeated so far in the tournament: eight matches and eight wins.
At the end of the semifinal, head coach Julio Velasco is already looking ahead to Sunday’s match against host Turkey at the Sinan Erdem Sports Hall, where the crowd is expected to be firmly on the side of Daniele Santarelli’s team: “It’s wonderful to win this way, because I love playing these kinds of games. Tomorrow it’ll be us against everyone else, and I love that. I had a similar experience at the 1990 World Cup in Brazil, and tomorrow’s game will be just like that. These are opportunities that come along only a few times in a lifetime. The girls have already experienced something similar in Belgrade, when they won the European Championship.”
“We have fantastic girls who never give up: sometimes they play better, other times things don’t go as well, but they don’t give up. We’ll see if that’s enough for us tomorrow. I expect a long match; I don’t think we can count on a quick win for us, and of course, we hope it won’t be a quick one for them either. We’ll have to stay in it and give it our all: we’re tough precisely because we never give up,” emphasizes Velasco. He then adds: “Today, the block-defense coordination also made the difference. On high balls, however, Poland had better percentages than in situations with perfect reception, and that’s a key point.”
Velasco also sees an Italian team that can still improve: “When we were very focused during the break phase, we did very well, while in some counterattack situations they gave us more trouble. There were also some defensive plays we could have handled better. These are areas we’ll need to improve on tomorrow, as well as our offense when our reception is poor. With the formation we’re using, it’s normal for our performance to suffer a bit: some players have to cover a lot of court, and it’s not always possible to be precise. So we’ll also need to be good at handling high balls.”
