Italian NT 2021

    A couple of days ago there has been the first call for NT:


    S: Davide Saitta, Paolo Porro

    OH: Mattia Bottolo, Oreste Cavuto, Daniele Lavia, Tommaso Rinaldi, Francesco Recine

    OPP: Giulio Pinali, Gabriele Nelli

    MB: Marco Vitelli, Gianluca Galassi, Leandro Mosca

    L: Filippo Federici, Leonardo Scanferla


    Still missing players from Trento, Perugia and Civitanova and the big names that will likely start later on (and probably not take part on the first phase of VNL). It's weird Sbertoli is not there, I guess he will join later on with the others but honestly I wouldn't necessarily pick him as Giannelli back-up for the Olympics. Finally after many years some good italian OH is coming up, considering in a year (I think?) Gardini is also coming back from college. And thanks god Blengini is leaving :whistle:

    Quote from greensoda

    Is De Giorgi confirmed as the new coach?


    Also, who would you bring as 2nd setter if not Sbertoli?

    I think it's not official yet , but I guess it's pretty much a done deal with De Giorgi.


    I probably didn't expressed correctly what I meant about Sbertoli, I'm not saying I wouldn't bring him to the Olympics, just that I don't necessarily see him as established on the first team, so I think it would be better to have him play on VNL and see his performance alongside with Saitta, whom I think could also be an option considering he's a more experienced player that could be useful

    Any updates? Have they started training for VNL?

    Gli%20azzurri%20in%20VNL.jpg


    It seems like this is the squad that they are sending to the VNL. From my understanding, Sbertoli is the captain. Russo is out because of his achilles tendon injury, and Daniele Lavia is coming at a later time to help recover from a surgery he recently had.



    Not sure if I translated quite right but it seems the rest of Team Italia (the veterans) are somewhere else, training together while the VNL is underway. I wonder what the entire team will look like come the Olympics. Will they be taking some players from the VNL squad, too? The players on the pics could already from quite the dream team IMO

    Quote from kingvetto



    Not sure if I translated quite right but it seems the rest of Team Italia (the veterans) are somewhere else, training together while the VNL is underway. I wonder what the entire team will look like come the Olympics. Will they be taking some players from the VNL squad, too? The players on the pics could already from quite the dream team IMO

    Hope they will take Michieletto to Tokyo

    Blengini has reduced the squad to 16 players:


    S: Simone Giannelli, Riccardo Sbertoli

    OPP: Luca Vettori, Ivan Zaytsev, Gabriele Nelli

    OHs: Osmany Juantorena, Jiri Kovar, Filippo Lanza, Alessandro Michieletto, Daniele Lavia

    MBs: Simone Anzani, Gianluca Galassi, Matteo Piano, Fabio Ricci

    L: Fabio Balaso e Massimo Colaci


    Saitta, Antonov, Pinali and Mazzone were cut.

    Quote from sandianando

    Do you get any info about or probably predicted date for the next cut announcement?

    Nah, I just read a news piece in Brazilian media. It did say, however, that these are the players chosen for two friendly matches against Argentina to be held July 10th and 11st, so it's safe to assume the last cuts will be made then.

    Looking obvious now to me.


    S: Giannelli, Sbertoli (shame they don't have a good backup)

    OP: Zaytsev, Vettori (:down:)

    OH: Juantorena, Lanza, Michieletto, Lavia (why is Kovar even in the squad?)

    MB: Anzani, Piano, Ricci (I'm surprised Mazzone got cut)

    L: Colaci (I hope Balaso kicked him out though)

    Palleggiatori: Simone Giannelli, Riccardo Sbertoli

    Opposto: Luca Vettori, Ivan Zaytsev

    Schiacciatori: Osmany Juantorena, Jiri Kovar, Daniele Lavia, Alessandro Michieletto

    Centrali: Simone Anzani, Gianluca Galassi, Matteo Piano

    Libero: Massimo Colaci


    Odd choice with a libero, but other than that, good choices from Blengini.