I am translating into English Caprara's interview after Russia - Germany:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZvY3rdVsM4&eurl=
I: Russia in the semifinals, from the current world champion, we could not expect anything but this...
G: Well, yes. 4 months ago, I would have said the same, but when this championship started, I was a bit worried cause we had a very shameful summer - I am not referring to the results by saying this cause you cannot always win anyway, but we played badly, frankly.
Instead in this Euroch, I can see we have more or less gotten back to our normal play, we still sometimes make very banal mistakes, but on the whole, we cannot complain. We have won all the games 3-0 so far, so we are slowly gaining confidence in our own means. As tonight you could witness yourself, blocking, which is our strongest weapon, has worked very well. On the contrary, our attacks did not work that much, but we already knew that against teams like Italy, Germany, Poland, Holland, it will be difficult to keep the ball high. Those are teams with features opposite to ours: they defend a lot, so we already knew that when we play with them, especially if the setting is not very precise, it will be difficult for us to score points by attacking.
I: So, You have your head already in Luxembourg. What shall we expect against Italy tomorrow, considering that it is a useless game?
C: Honestly, I don't know. I am not doing pre tactics by answering this way; it's just that I have yet to meet out tutor, our athl. prep., so I am not sure yet. It will depends on our conditions, whether I will think we need some more trainings on a actual match (playing with the regular players) or we have to rest a little bit. And this I will decide thinking what's better for our team, without wanting to snob anyone.
I: What do you think of the team in the other pool? What is the overall level?
C: I have not yet studied the other pool. I am sorry; I was just concentrated on this one. We have a scoutman there who is filming the games; we will go through all that in due course. I think we knew from the start that Poland, Serbia and Holland would be difficult opponents, that Poland has a few features similar to our team, in the sense that they are not great defenders- receivers, but are very good at blocking. Maybe they are even a bit better in attack, cause they have more solutions: they have a setter who plays a bit quicker, while we still are slow in that regard. And Holland is a team I like very much: it makes very few mistakes, is concentrated, and has a very well organised play. I am not sure of Serbia, but I think they are the weakest link so far, I think they had some problems with the team formation as a few important players are missing.
"Non ho nessun problema a stare con la gente, mi piace. Perche' sono come loro, come te. Non ho nulla di speciale. Sono solo stato piu' fortunato di altri: ho trovato la mia strada." Giani
And what has told G. after today's game?
Впрочем, позитивные "вспышки" бывали, но этого явно не достаточно, чтобы остановить набравший полный ход итальяский "паровоз".
