Manama, Bahrain, July 19, 2019 – Italy charted their second victory in Pool D of the FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship after taking a straight-sets match (25-23, 25-21, 28-26) against Poland on Friday night.
Italy coach Monica Cresta: “It was never easy for us in this match. Poland knew they needed to play well in this match, as they lost yesterday and they needed to try everything they could today. They were good in service and decisive in their attacks. We almost always came from behind but slowly, we managed to recover.”
Italy captain Francesco Recine: “Poland is very strong physically and today their service was really strong. In some moments, we suffered from their strong serves. But we tried to play more aggressively, and with the team working together, we were able to win.”
Italy libero Filippo Federici: “It was surely a beautiful match. We managed to add up the points to our favour. But they were really good in service, they really put pressure in that. We played together as a team in those moments that we needed to be a team.”
Poland coach Michał Bakiewicz: “We made a lot of errors but we needed to make some risks on our service and the high balls. We fought hard, but today, Italy just played better in all sets. We have to work more and just play our remaining games. We want to win each one of those.”
Poland player Bartosz Firszt: “Italy has very good serves. It was hard for us to receive but we were lucky in some plays. They also block very well so we needed to focus on our attack on a much higher level. We couldn’t do our best today.”