Golden performance from Brazil claims third title in
four years
 Rome,
Italy, July 18, 2004 – Brazil defended their World
League title with an amazing display of vintage
Volleyball to storm to a 3-1 (27-25, 25-19, 25-27,
25-17) victory in a wonderful final over courageous
Italy in the Palalottomatica in Rome, Italy.
In front of 11,000 screaming fans Brazil pulled out all
their magic tricks led by their magician Giba in a
riveting display of top class Volleyball. Spiking,
blocking or digging Brazil were too efficient for Italy
and they thoroughly deserved to win their fourth World
League gold medal and their third in four years in a
magnificent scene of blue, green and yellow.
Italy, who have won eight World League titles – the last
in 2000 – made it a wonderful contest, with Samuele Papi
at his sparkling best. They were unlucky not to win the
first set and fought extremely hard in the third.
However, Brazil’s class was evident regularly and in the
end they wrapped up their fifth international title in
two years comfortably.
“I’m very happy because some of our young players did
their best and played well,” Brazilian coach Bernardo
Rezende said. “This is a great win for us and we’re
happy to win like this because we managed to spike very
well, even if the start was nervous. Now we have a new
target in the Olympic Games next month.”
“We reached another important target against Italy
playing in front of their home crowd,” Brazilian captain
Giovane said. “Maybe this is the first sign of what can
happen at the Olympics. We would love to keep playing
great matches like this today. From tomorrow we start
thinking about Athens”
The Brazilians will definitely be the favourites at the
Olympics having collected the 2002 World Championship
title, the last two World League titles and the 2003
World Cup.
“Brazil showed they are a strong team, they are a highly
skilled team and mentally strong and that is our target
if we want to beat them,” Italian captain Andre Giani
said. “This match was very important for us because in
our plan was to play at the same level, and we did.”
Earlier, Serbia and Montenegro claimed the bronze medal
with a hard fought straight sets (25-23, 25-19, 25-20)
win over their Balkan neighbours Bulgaria.
The silver medalists from last year weren’t quite at
their efficient best but in the end the Olympic
champions proved too experienced and well-organized for
Bulgaria to claim their third medal from seven attempts.
2004 World League awards
Best Scorer: Andrea Sartoretti (Italy)
Best Spiker: Samuele Papi (Italy)
Best Blocker: Luigi Mastrangelo (Italy)
Best Server: Matey Kaziyski (Bulgaria) |
4-6 June