The predictions came true and the Cuban men’s volleyball team was eliminated from the fight for medals in the World Championship, after succumbing 3-1 in the round of 16 against an Italy that shot ex officio and took full advantage of the multiple failures of the rival to sneak into the top eight teams in the world.
At the Arena Stožice in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the transalpines dominated the game and were able to control the attacks of the squad led by Nicolás Vives, who was once again very unstable and indecisive at decisive moments.
The Italians came out ahead with a score of 25-21 in the first round, but the Cubans struck back in the second with the same score. In this scenario, the Europeans brought out their greatest experience and managed to destabilize the Caribbean team, without punching in the defense of the net, with many gaps in the service and inaccuracies in the reception.
The combination of these factors caused the victory of the Europeans in the third and fourth sets with scores of 26-24 and 25-18. In these two sets, Italy achieved eight of the 12 blocks that they totaled in the match, taking great advantage of the unbalanced Cuban attack, which by that time was almost totally loaded towards Jesús Herrera.
“It was a very good match and I think the key for us was to serve better in the third and fourth set. Winning that third set was critical as it gave us the confidence to play even better in the fourth set. The whole team played very well and I am very happy with our performance in such a difficult game”, said the young assistant Alessandro Michieletto, one of the talismans of the Azzurra, after the match.
The left-hander scored nine points, some of them with powerful attacks from the back that found no resistance from the Antilles. In addition, his powerful service wreaked havoc on the Cuban defensive line, totally uncoordinated in different sections of the match.
Opposite Yuri Romano (14 points) and assistant Daniele Lavia (11) were the best scorers on the Italian squad, although center backs Roberto Russo, Simone Anzani and Gianluca Galassi were also decisive with seven blocks.
Mentor Ferdinando Di Giorgi’s boys had a very well distributed offense by passer and captain Simone Giannelli, unlike Cuba, who reloaded their attack on opposite Jesus Herrera, the only one with true ability to pierce the Italian lines.
The Antillean opponent scored 23 points, of which 19 in attack and three in service, and was the recurring weapon of passers Adrián Goide and Liván Taboada, who gave him successive balls in many moments of the duel. Herrera more than complied, but missed the support of the auxiliaries, especially Miguel Ángel López and Osniel Mergarejo.
Between these two men, one of the most important in the Cuban team, they only scored eight points, while the other auxiliary, Marlon Yant, stayed at 11 units, although with four errors in service and a low 15.38% efficiency in 26 opportunities. Of attack.
Of the central defenders, Robertlandy Simón contributed 11 cards with a notable effectiveness in attack and two blocks, but he could not do any damage with his services. For his part, captain Liván Osoria had very little impact on the game and only scored five points, one of them defending the net.
In total, Cuba committed 44 errors (22 of them on serve), 45.4% of the Italian points, which breathed a sigh of relief due to the continuous errors in decisive moments. The Antilleans were not effective in decisive moments, they gave away many balls and showed signs of desperation and very little ability to maintain stability in the game. In addition, the high command did not know how to move their pieces carefully and, once again, they seemed to work on the basis of intuition, something fatal in a sport in which tactical decisions are based on deep data analysis.
With the victory, Italy advances to the quarterfinals, where they will meet the winner of the duel between France and Japan. Cuba, for its part, bids farewell with full awareness that it has a young and talented generation, which needs to continue adding flight hours to try to carve out a space in the men’s volleyball elite.
