Game 83, 09:00, men, CHINA 7 ITALY 14

Thursday, 30 July 2009 09:00

Classification 11th-12th

Referees: Radu MATACHE (ROU), Steve ROTSART (USA)

Quarters: 2-4, 2-2, 1-5, 2-3

Extra man: CHN 4/9; ITA 2/6

Teams:

CHINA: GE Weiqing, LIANG Zhongxing (3), LI Jun, YU Lijun (1), TAN Feihi, WANG Beiming (2), LI Bin, WANG Yong, WANG Yang (1), XIE Junmin, HAN Zhidong, GUO Junliang, WU Honghui. Head Coach: CAI Tianxiong.
ITALY: Stefano TEMPESTI, Federico MISTRANGELO (4), Alex GIORGETTI (2), Fabrizio BUONOCORE, Valentino GALLO, Maurizio FELUGO, Andrea MANGIANTE (1), Valerio RIZZO (2), Niccolo FIGARI, Alessandra CALCATERRA, Matteo AICARDI (5), Goran FIORENTINI, Tommaso NEGRI. Assistant Coach: Amadeo POMILIO.

The difference was finesse versus brute strength. The Chinese have the strength and the outside shooting prowess (wayward in the second and third
periods) but the Italians had typical flair, simple touches and time to use situations to their advantage. Sometimes they tried tricky passing to no avail but they had the time and goal differential to please one of the smallest attendances of the tournament. It was, after all, the play-off for 11th place. MISTRANGELO and AICARDI revelled in the chance to score more goals than they could have hoped for while their regular head coach, Alessandro CAMPAGNA, watched from the stands while serving a game suspension. Eleventh place is a long way from the last time the championships were staged here when Italy won gold. China moved up one placing from 2007. The match marked the end of an era in which captain CALCATERRA announced his retirement from the national team, following the lead of Italian women¹s captain Tania DI MARIO and team-mate Sylvia BOSURGI the previous day. CALCATERRA had been a fixture in the Italian team since the early 1990s.