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Team Italy are slowly but surely warming up. In their third match at this year’s EuroVolley, Italy beat the brave players of Slovakia 3-1 to claim their third victory in as many matches after previously sweeping aside Belarus and Hungary. The Slovakian team, on the other hand, suffered their third straight loss, so they will have to try to secure their journey to the next round through the matches against Switzerland and Belarus. 

Though they were defeated, the Slovakian girls played very bravely against their opponents, never allowing an obvious Italian domination to crush their spirit, but the Italian team was better in the end.

The first set was very interesting. Until 14-14, their game was pretty even, but then Italy pushed for their advantage (19-15) and the set was pretty much decided. In that set nobody gained any points through a serve or block, the teams were gathering them only through attacks or unintentional mistakes made by the opposition.

In the second set, Italy were more aggressive, they did not make that many mistakes (12 in the first set, but only five in the second), they added three more points from the block, while the Slovakian girls had a bit of a hard time to keep up. And when we thought that the Italians would fly through the third set, Slovakia pulled together and decided to give their very best and they won it, thus reminding us that everything is possible in sports. Though the final result was 27-25, the Slovakians had a healthy 24-20 lead, so with a little bit of luck, they could have won it even sooner. They had better reception - 62%, while Italy had only 33%.

However, Italy won the fourth set. Their game improved, they made 15 points in attack, three by the block and one ace serve. Looking back at the whole game, Italy made 32 unintentional mistakes, while Slovakia registered 25, so that lack of concentration on the Italian side of the net could actually explain the four sets in the end.