20-Nov, start time: 18:05, end time: 19:39 - Attendance: 4,800

BRA	3	25	26	20	25	-	96
ITA	1	18	24	25	22	-	89

Match Description:

Brazil Win Battle of Continental Heavyweights
Unbeaten Brazil continued their march towards Olympic qualification when they won the battle of the continental heavyweights at the men's World Cup with a 3-1 victory over Italy at Site B in Hamamatsu.

Enjoying what was practically home-crowd support, the South American champions secured their fourth win from four games 25-18, 26-24, 20-25, 25-22 against an Italian team that failed to recover from a slow start on a tense evening.

While Brazil came out guns blazing in the opening set, Italy appeared tentative and unable to bring their best attackers into play. Brazil's Gustavo Endres dominated at the net while Giovane Gavio and Anderson Rodrigues unloaded their bombs from the flanks as the World League champions opened a 19-21 lead. The usual pressure from Italy's serve was missing as Brazil claimed the set.

Andrea Sartoretti began to find his range in the second, troubling Brazil's receivers with his serve and left-arm spiking as a more competitive Italy fought back to 22-22. Although Italy saved one set point they went two games down to a Ricardo Garcia ace.

Italian blocking continued to improve in the third, along with the spiking of Samuele Papi and Matej Cernic as the Europeans built a 16-11 lead that Brazil were unable to reel in.

But Italy's resurgence was thwarted by a run of five straight points for the Brazilians in a fourth set in which their captain Nalbert Bitencourt and Gilberto Godoy Filho were outstanding. Italy saved two match points but merely delayed the inevitable.

Comments:

" I think we contained Italy very well and gave ourselves a lot of opportunities in attack. They changed their blockers and attackers in the third set and perhaps we weren't quite prepared for this. But we came back well in the fourth. It was a very important victory for us. It was a big step towards qualifying for the Olympics next year."
BERNARDO REZENDE
Head coach, Brazil

"I'm very happy. We are playing with a lot of will and determination at the moment. Our team work is very good, which is important in a long competition like this."
RICARDO GARCIA
Brazil

"Congratulations to Brazil - it was the correct result. We started too afraid of them at the start of the first set, which is a position me and my players are not used to. We then came back well in the second set and matched them point for point after that. But in the fourth set two of their players played very well in reception and defense and that I think made the difference. But it is a long tournament. Brazil are leading at the moment because they are playing better than the rest of us right now."
GIANPAOLO MONTALI
Head coach, Italy

Official Result:

Match statistics (P-2) - PDF