Volleyball does not stop.
Immediately after the Tokyo Olympics tournaments, which ended with the gold of France among men and of the USA in the women's field, there were the European beach volleyball championships (Lupo-Nicolai eliminated in the second round by the new Norwegian Olympic champions Christian Sorum and Anders Mol), now it's up to the girls of coach Davide Mazzanti, who are also involved in the continental championship.
So tomorrow, the day of the opening matches Bulgaria-Greece and Romania-Turkey, the blue will leave for Zadar where from Friday they will be engaged in group C of these European 2021, which will last until 4 September and will take place in Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia. and Romania. The first match for the blue is set for Friday at 5.15 pm, when Sylla and her teammates will face Belarus. Then Italy's other opponents in the first phase will be the hosts of Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Switzerland.
It will be a European of considerable technical caliber, because the temporal proximity to the Olympics has favored the presence of the great European stars much more than will happen for the continental men's review, which will begin after the end of the women's tournament. In fact, that of women will be a European with many athletes who have been present in the Tokyo 2020 tournament, in which the old continent finished on the podium with the bronze of Serbia, great disappointment in Japan where it declaredly aimed to win gold. So now she will try to make up for the disappointment by confirming herself on that continental throne where she already sat in 2017 and 2019 in Ankara, in the latter case by beating the team that played at home, or Turkey, in the final.
In this edition Serbia will always play at home, therefore in Belgrade, and will present itself with the best possible formation, the same as Tokyo. The Turkey of coach Giovanni Guidetti will do so, and will aim to make up for the setback of two years ago, while the Russia of another Italian coach, Sergio Busato, will take the opportunity to play a couple of very promising girls but kept up to now between the second lines.
It's Italy? It will be the team that will change more compared to Tokyo also because it will have to do without, due to physical problems, Raphaela Folie and Caterina Bosetti, the latter being particularly heavy from a technical point of view. The former Lithuanian Indre Sorokaite will also be missing, in need, as she herself explained, "to recharge the batteries", but after all it is a forfeit that she had long agreed with Mazzanti. Who hopes to see his girls more focused, and will be curious to see how they will react to the words said after the elimination from Tokyo, when the coach stressed that he would have liked to see his players less active on social media and more on the pitch. Meanwhile, the possibility of inserting 14 players in the squad instead of the 12 of theOlimpiade will give Mazzanti the opportunity to insert five new blue ones compared to the five-circle adventure: Sara Bonifacio in the center, Beatrice Parrocchiale free, Sofia D'Odorico and Alessia Gennari in the band and Sylvia Nwakalor in the role of opposite, as deputy of Paola Egonu. If all this will be enough to bring the competitive Italvolley back to the highest levels, perhaps to repeat the bronze of two years ago or even improve it, only the pitch will be able to say.