Watch Live her quarter -finals National pole With Italy for the World Championship.
A classic battle against Italy will essentially judge the course of the Men’s National Pole at the Singapore World Championships.
The quarter-finals, by definition of the most important match of the competition, brings the Greek team to the band of Sandro Campaign (20/7) at 11am, with the winner entering the four and having two opportunities to claim a medal and the loser.
The two teams’ racing image in their games so far, as well as the two friendly preparation of the previous month (where National lost 16-10 to Larissa and 16-9 in Trapani) are favoring their “Setabello” favorites, but this is not very important in such a critical match.
All the more so when the two specific groups have “built” in recent years of the tradition of large duels, which are usually characterized by a lot of power and tension and do not always end with the theoretical favorite.
The main issue for the Greek team is to improve its performance, mainly in the offensive part, where it lagged in the defeats of the first phase by Montenegro and Croatia (both with a score of 10-9).
The lack of Yiannis Fountoulis and – mainly – of Angelos Vlachopoulos has created a problem in organizing the game, the absence of the surgeon Alexander Papanastasiou deprives Thodoris Vlachos the basic peak at the counter, while the two most experienced peripherals
The defense is generally going well, the furious wins are miscarriaged, but that does not reach such a strong opponent. Maybe the time has come to come forward (Kalogeropoulos, Gillas, Halivopoulos) and lead National to a success that – with the current data – looks like overrun.
Italy traveled to Singapore determined to take a rematch for the obvious injustice she suffered in the quarter -finals of the Olympic Games with Hungary and deprived her of the opportunity to claim a medal.
Indeed, the “Stebello” were punished by the International Federation because of the way they chose to protest in Paris, and were absent from the World Cup, in which the Greek team reached the final. In relation to the 13th team of the Olympic Games, veteran Marko del Lungo, Gonzalo Edenike, Andrea Fonteli and Vincenzo Renzuto have been left out of the campaign, but leading Francesco Di Fulvio, The 22 -year -old Francesco Content.
Sandro’s Campaign team qualified directly to the quarter-finals, as the first of the first group, thanks to its win over Serbia with a 17-16 penalty shoot-out (in a match with three goals, two and a half minutes before the end). In its other games, it did not face problems against Romania (17-5) and South Africa (28-4).
This is the second consecutive year that the two teams will face the quarter -finals of the World Championship. Last year in Doha, in an episode of game, Ethniki withstood playing a four-minute player with less (A Argyropoulos was eliminated for violence in the second period) and led 10-8 two and a half minutes before the end, but received a 3-0 run and lost 11-10, with 11-10, with them. A few months later, the two teams also met at the Olympics, in the group stage, with the “blue-white” 9-8.
The 13th match of Greece and Italy will be in a world championship in total and the sixth time they cross their swords in a crucial match. Ethniki has a total of four wins and eight defeats, while in major knockout matches the … balance is slightly in favor of neighbors, with three wins over two. The Greek team prevailed in the Montreal quarter-finals in 2005 (13-9), and in the “small” Kazan final in 2015 (11-9 in penalties), in both cases the bronze medal. The “Stebello” won the 2019 quarter-finals in Guangzu (7-6), the 2022 semifinals in Budapest (11-10) and the last year’s quarter-finals in Doha (also 11-10).
It is noted that Italy is the Polynesian in the Men’s World Championships (along with Hungary) with four titles, last of which in 2019. She has participated in all 21 previous events and has four silver and a bronze medal in her collection, and since 2011.
Since the eight presumption of stronger teams went to the octave, all the quarter -finals are a derby. Spain is just a pure favorite against Montenegro, the couple who intersects in the semifinals with that of the National. The other two games are a repetition of the semifinals of Paris, with Croatia’s title holder facing Hungary and the “golden” Olympian Serbia with the US.