World Cup, Settebello beat France 11-8: it’s the Final Six

It’s not like the epic comeback of 24 hours before against Croatia, but once again the Settebello comes out from a distance. And against France he scored three points that are worth the arithmetic certainty of the World League Final Six: “It was another tough game. At first we felt the tiredness of close engagements, then we woke up. We are happy to have hit the finish line, we will have to organize ourselves well in the summer because we will have little time between the event in Los Angeles and the World Cup”, comments Sandro Campagna after 8-11 on the fifth day.

BRAVO OF THE LONG

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Fresh from the exhilarating successes in the previous matches, on the fifth day Italy takes to the water with little malice. Driven by the usual Thomas Vernoux, the French extend up to 5-2 in the first half, forcing Campagna to call a time out already in the 7th minute. And in the second half there is the expected shock: a 5-0 break in the sign of Di Somma (at the end of the match there will be five goals and an MVP award) turns the match upside down, then in the third quarter the maximum difference arrives (10-6 ) between saves by an excellent Del Lungo. No thrills in the final 8′, France closes with a miserable 23% shooting. Our defense was excellent with one man down: just two goals conceded out of the 14 chances of our rivals. Tomorrow, for the Settebello, a day of rest: we will close the Zagreb tournament on Tuesday against the United States.

ITALIA: Del Lungo, F. Di Fulvio, Damonte 2, Marziali, Alesiani, Cinnamon 1, Renzuto 1, Iocchi Gratta, N. Presciutti, Bruni 1, E. Di Somma 5, Dolce 1, Massaro All. Campagna.

FRANCE: Fontani, Guerin, U. Crousillat 1, Bouet, Khasz, T. Vernoux 3, Zivkovic 1, Bjorch 1, Marzouki 1 rig., Canovas 1, Vanpeperstraete, De Nardi, Rossi. All. Bruzzo.

REFEREES: Berishvili (Geo) and Gomez (Spa).

NOTE:sup. no. Italy 10 (3 goals), France 14 (2). Out. 3 f. De Nardi 27′, Iocchi Gratta 31′.

Wednesday 8: Italy-Japan 13-7, Croatia-USA 16-14, Hungary-France 10-6.
Thursday 9: Croatia-France 12-7, USA-Japan 13-11.
Friday 10: Italy-Hungary 9-8, USA-France 12-9.
Saturday 11: Croatia-Italy 13-14, Hungary-Japan 17-7.
Sunday 12: Croatia-Japan 14-8, Italy-France 11-8.
Monday 13: USA-Hungary (18.30), Japan-France (20.30).
Tuesday 14th: Italy-USA (18.30), Croatia-Hungary (20.30).
Classification: Italy 12 (played 4); Croatia 9 (4); Hungary 6 (3), USA 6 (3); Japan 0 (4), France 0 (4).

The formula: at the Final Six in Los Angeles, from 30 June to 2 July, two teams from group A (in addition to the USA) and the top three from group B in Podgorica with Montenegro, Serbia, Greece, Georgia, Australia and Spain.