The French Olympic volleyball champions, with their star Earvin Ngapeth back from injury, qualified for the final of the Nations League by beating Italy 3 sets to 0 at home (25-22, 25-20, 25-15), Saturday in Bologna.
The Blues, now coached by Italian volleyball legend Andrea Giani, will face the United States in the final on Sunday (9:00 p.m.), easy winners a little earlier 3-0 from Poland, double world champion, in the other half. -final.
The French have yet to concede a set in this final phase, after their first 3-0 victory against Japan in the quarter-finals on Thursday.
A meeting in which Ngapeth could not participate, hit in an ankle in training the same morning.
But on Saturday, the leader of the Blues was present and took the whole team in his wake to stifle a powerless Italian team despite the support of some 11,000 spectators at the Unipol Arena in Bologna.
We surpassed them
Earvin Ngapeth
"
We knew they were going to start hard
," Ngapeth told
L'Équipe
after the match .
“
We had to hold the start of the match.
We knew they were going to start at 2000%.
We held on, and little by little we put our game in place.
I think that on everything that is in the game, whether it is defense, service, even in the block, we surpassed them today
, he continued
.
And what's more, when you put a smile on it like that, it hurts the opponent, we know that
.
After two first sets of very high intensity, won 25-22 and 25-20 by the French, the Italians seemed more resigned in the third and last set, which ended with a wider score: 25-15, on a last engagement of John Patrick.
Patry and Ngapeth also play in the Italian championship, the first in Milan, the second in Modena.
At the end of the match, the Blues paid tribute to Xavier Richefort, a journalist specializing in volleyball, who died on Friday of a heart attack at the age of 59, by each wearing a t-shirt bearing the inscription Xavier.
Volleyball great Italy, a three-time world champion, three-time Olympic runner-up, eight-time World League winner and reigning European champion, will play Sunday's third-place match against Poland ( 6 p.m.).
The Blues had already beaten the Italians in the preliminary round on June 9 (3-0).
