EuroVolleyM: Quarterfinal duel between Italy and Germany opposes former teammates

During their playing careers, Ferdinando de Giorgi and Andrea Giani were on the same side of the court in some of the most important moments of Italian volleyball, helping their home country winning three consecutive world titles in the 1990s. On Wednesday, the former teammates, now turned coaches, will be on opposite sides as their teams, Italy and Germany, compete for a spot in the semifinals of the CEV EuroVolley Men 2021.

The quarterfinal duel between Italians, who are still undefeated after their first six matches in the tournament, and Germans, who won four of their pool matches and an Eight Final duel with Bulgaria, is one of the two that will take place in Ostrava, with hosts Czech Republic facing Slovenia later in the evening.

The EuroVolley is the first tournament the Italians play under the guidance of the 59-year-old Di Giorgi, who was a setter in this playing career. And things couldn’t have gone better for the six-time continental champions as the team remains undefeated despite the absence of arguably its two best players in the last years, outside hitter Osmany Juantorena, who retired from international volleyball at the end of the Tokyo Games, and opposite Ivan Zaytsev, who recently underwent surgery.

Germany, which have been coached by Giani since 2017, want to keep going forward and hopefully return to the gold medal match, something they did in the first year of the coach’s tenure.

With a semifinal spot on the line, this was already a match that had more than enough reasons to be an exciting one and the duel between two familiar coaches just adds to it.