The women’s national volleyball team climbs to the top of Europe and does so in front of the 20,565 spectators of the Stark Arena in Belgrade, against the host Serbia who until now was considered the black beast of the blue, since she had beaten them in different circumstances. Italy led by coach Davide Mazzanti cancels the Olympic disappointment, suffered against the Serbian girls, with a swipe of the towel, and wins 3-1 (24-26, 25-22, 25-19, 25-11) , winning first place in the 32nd edition of the European Women’s Championship.
12 years after the last final played in the continental tournament, and from the last gold, the blue have succeeded in the maximum feat and are back on the top step of the podium after a tiring start, since the hosts are awarded the first of the four sets played this evening. It is the third title for the blue volleyball players who expressed the best technical figure of the whole tournament and it is certainly no coincidence that they won it with full merit.
While granting the opponents a very hard-fought first partial, the girls led by Mazzanti managed to bring home a historic result, which had been missing for 12 years and which in the fourth set has never been questioned by the progress of the game, thanks to the yet another high-level performance by an extraordinary group. The sporting summer of the great sporting enterprises for Italy, therefore, shows no sign of ending: the European triumph in football, the avalanche of Olympic and Paralympic medals. Belgrade’s success sounds like a real revenge after the defeat in the quarter-finals at the Tokyo Olympics against Serbia. Myriam Sylla and Paola Egonu (awarded at the end as the best player of the tournament) were once again among the best in the field for the blue, the glory however must be attributed to all the girls, who were able to grit their teeth in difficult moments and, in the end, they took the biggest satisfaction, but also in some respects unexpected. Egonu guaranteed Italy 29 points, Sylla 20, to which are added the 13 lengths of the Pietrini, the 8 of the Danesi and the 2 of the Malinova, while Chirichella stopped at one. The match lasted just under an hour and three quarters: that was enough for Mazzanti’s team to rise to the throne of Europe and once again rewrite the history of Italian volleyball.