Italy is the absolute master of international volleyball! Champions of Europe with women, Champions of Europe with men. All in the same year. It had never happened before in our history to win the continental review of both sexes in the same competitive year.
The magic was completed in this wonderful summer of 2021: Davide Mazzanti’s girls triumphed last September 4th demolishing Serbia in its Belgrade lair, today the boys of Fefé De Giorgi imposed themselves in Katowice by regulating Slovenia at the end of a surreal tie-break.
The Azzurri returned to triumph sixteen years after the last apotheosis (Rome 2005, another tie-break against Russia in front of the 14,000 PalaLottomatica fans), ascending the throne of the Old Continent for the seventh time in history. Paola Egonu and her companions instead gave the third affirmation after those of 2007 and 2009.
Italy has managed to win everything like only three great battleships of the past, more or less recently, they had been able to do: Soviet Union nine times (between 1951 and 1991), Serbia twice (2011 and 2019), Russia once (2013). Both teams qualified for the 2022 World Cup, where they will try to be protagonists once again.
Photo: CEV
