Bristot drags the national team, the Azzurri first in the group: “Now under with Serbia”

The hammer from Belluno protagonist at the Under 18 European Volleyball Championships: “I took back my place as a starter, regaining the trust of the team and the coach”

TBILISI (GEORGIA). There are the hands of Alessandro Bristot on the pokerissimo of the Italian national volleyball team under 18 in the group stage of the men’s European championships. The azzurrini have won Pool II with five out of five wins and today at 5.30 pm at the Sports Palace in Tbilisi, Georgia, they face Serbia in the semifinals. In the last two stages of the group path, Italy overtook Bulgaria (which tomorrow afternoon, in the other semi-final, will face France) and Poland. In both cases, Bristot was the top scorer of Michele Zanin’s team.

On Thursday, in the tie-break victory against Bulgaria (25-17, 21-25, 15-25, 26-24, 17-15), Bristot played for the first time in the starting sextet and signed on 17 of the blue points. On Friday, in the 3-1 inflicted on Poland (25-23, 25-20, 19-25, 25-18), the Spiker from Sedicense born in 2005 under the Trentino Volley, re-proposed in the starting line-up of the Azzurrini, scored 18 .

In the three previous games, despite starting from the bench, Bristot had proved to be a real showman, deciding the games played against Germany (9 points), Greece (10 points) and Slovenia (23 points). In four of these five matches, Alessandro was the best blue scorer, with 77 points totaled.

«I am certainly satisfied with the results we have achieved in the group», says Alessandro Bristot from Belluno on the eve of the European semifinal against Serbia, «but we are well aware that the most important matches are starting now. I hadn’t trained very well in the pre-European season, especially in reception, so I rightly didn’t deserve the starting position ».

But when things started to get more complicated, Bristot returned to starring. «After the European Championship I got back on track», explains the spiker who grew up in the Spes Belluno youth academy, «and I gained confidence from the team and from the coach, playing good games and landing important balls. So I got my job back. The semi-final against Serbia will certainly be a difficult match, but we know what our potential is and we will certainly never give up ».

These are the fourteen Italians who competed in the under 18 European men’s championships: Tommaso Barotto, Pietro Bonisoli, Daniele Carpita and Giacomo Selleri (Diavoli Rosa); Alessandro Bristot and Marco Fedrici (Trentino Volley); Filippelli Mattia and Luca Pozzebon (Volley Treviso); Diego Frascio (Dinamo Pall. Bellaria Ig. Mar.); Luca Loreti and Flavio Morazzini (CDP Fenice Roma Volleyball); Lorenzo Magliano (Volleyball Milan); Pardo Mati (Invicta Volley Ball) and Federico Miraglia (Volley Leverano).

The blue staff is made up of Michele Zanin (first coach), Moreno Traviglia (second coach), Marco Ceccacci (athletic trainer), Lucio D’Antonio (doctor), Maira Di Vagno (physiotherapist), Annalisa Pinto (scoutman) and Alessio Di Iorio (team manager). To supervise everything, none other than Julio Velasco, technical directoror the youth sector of Fipav.

Charts.

Pool I: 1. France, 2. Serbia, 3. Czech Republic, 4. Belgium, 5. Finland, 6. Georgia. Pool II: 1. Italy, 2. Bulgaria, 3. Poland, 4. Slovenia, 5. Greece, 6. Germany.

Program.

Semi-finals: Saturday 16 July: at 15 France – Bulgaria, at 17.30 Italy – Serbia. Finals: Sunday 17 July third place at 1.30pm; first place at 16.