Poland vs Italy Prediction: Italy Has As Much Chance to Win as There's Hair on Kurek's Head

Last year, these teams did not meet at the Polish European Championship - the Italians were unexpectedly helped by their neighbors from Slovenia. Now the Slovenians helped the Poles by giving them an opponent that Poland regularly defeats in the final.

The Poles in the semifinals played astonishingly - only 19 service faults in five games. Recall that in the match with the USA, they lost it 27 times, and 24 of them were after four sets. Only Bartos Kurek gave the Americans six points. But in five sets against the Brazilians, he never failed! Aside from Kurek, Bieniek and Kochanowski had fewer serve errors, while the rest didn't increase. Grbic's instruction must have been, "Put the ball over the net, give your opponent a chance to make an error." And it worked.

So Poland was pushing hard on the serve. Can they do it again, and more importantly, does it make sense? The Italians at the World Championships are not bad, they have a great setter, and the edges have not failed so far, although Micheletto still does not shine. If the Poles continue to be accurate, nothing good awaits them.

And it's even more miraculous: 10 errors in three sets in the semifinals against Slovenia. Remember that in the match with France De Giorgi's wards failed their services more than five times per set on average. Romano and Lavia gave 11 serves to the French and only two to the Slovenians. Were the Italians expecting Slovenia to start getting jittery? Slovenia got nervous from the start. We do not expect the same from Poland. The Polish team has champion after champion and even has one two-time champion in the reception, Zatorski. 

Conclusion: we probably won't see any soft serve in the final match. Hence, the TO of serve errors again looks promising.

Aside from that, Italy lacks aces. Poland's handicap is a good bet.

So, Poland is not France, and Kurek will not give the Italians 19 points. Italy lately, under any coach, plays with the Poles poorly - Micheletto is scared of the big guys, Balaso stops receiving, Giannelli does not help, and only Lavia tries to oppose somehow.

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