When the Italy-Bulgaria world final is played, background and where to watch it on TV
At the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasai City, Philippines, Ferdinando De Giorgi’s Italy will face Gianlorenzo Blengini’s Bulgaria in the final of the men’s volleyball world championships. The match between the Azzurri and Bulgarians is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 27, at 12:30 p.m. Italian (6:30 p.m. local) on the taraflex of the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. At 8:30 a.m. Italian (2:30 p.m. local) it will be Bulgaria and Czech Republic’s turn to oppose each other in the other semifinal.
For Italy, the reigning world champions, it is the sixth rainbow final in its history in the men’s field, four won (1990, 1994, 1998 and 2022) and one lost (1978), for De Giorgi the fifth, the second as coach after three as a player. For Bulgaria, it will be the first ever as in 1970 it finished second, yes, but at the end of a round.
Just at the helm of Italy Blengini won an Olympic silver medal in Rio 2016 losing the final to hosts Brazil. There are 27 previous matches between the two national teams, and Italy has won 17 of them.
The world final will be viewable live free-to-air on Rai 2 and streaming on RaiPlay, Dazn and VBTV.
These are the words of the Azzurri coach: “Bulgaria is a team that deserved to get to the final, a little bit of a surprise, in the sense that on the other side there were strong teams that were eliminated, but not for their demerit: Bulgaria played very well. They are a talented, strong team, and so tomorrow we also have to prepare for a game to be played to the end.”
“With Poland lately we are playing a lot of important games, because when you get to the final stage of tournaments playing against Poland means that you are playing something serious. As it happened today; sometimes they were good, today we were better.”
“We held our ground in the moments when they tried very hard between serve, wall, attack to come back. We did not break down, even when we suffered two or three points in delicate moments. The team always remained very lucid, with a clear idea of what they had to do to get out of it”.
