USA vs. Italy

USA in Florence, Italy
We arrived in Florence Tuesday evening from Holland. Yesterday morning the team had a good practice at the site of Friday's match, Nelson Mandela Forum. The only hiccup thus far in the trip is that Alfee Reft suffered a minor ankle sprain yesterday in practice. He was going to set a ball that Kevin Hansen had just gotten up when he stepped on Kevin and rolled his left ankle. He's done that ankle before so it isn't as traumatic as it could have been. Alfee is walking on it and thinks he will be back very soon, but I think team trainer Aaron Brock will have something to say about that...
Speaking of AB, I've got a little video on YouTube showing how Brock can use Jedi mind tricks to get players, in this case Brook Billings, to give HIM a shoulder massage. View the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArDk-6M2lUw.
The local federation treated the team to a nice dinner outside the hotel last night. We went to a very old ristorante in downtown Florence called Antico Fattore. There were photos on the wall showing customers from the 1930's. They treated us right with Bistecca Fiorentino, or Florentine Steak-a little rare for some tastes, but very tasty. Of course there was a pasta dish, and chicken liver pate and mushrooms over fried polenta as an appetizer. Authentic Tuscan food! View a video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dkqc9qsYcY.
There was time to see some of the sights in Florence. Everyone except for poor Alfee got to walk around the city center. Florence is known for its amazing art and as being the cradle and heart of the Renaissance.
Check out a video of the U.S. players standing around Florence's city center at www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-mCQ8bf59A.
The volleyball community has its own card game called Finniente (spelling, origin, and meaning of the name are a mystery). In Italian "finniente" would mean "never ending" which would be appropriate on this trip. If there are a few minutes to spare and enough space for 4 guys and a deck of cards then there will be a game of "finny". Marv Dunphy holds all the cards when it comes to Finniente, but legend goes back to the beaches of Southern California with stories of Wilt the Stilt playing Finny and taking it very seriously. You will find a clip of the boys playing in Rome's Fiumicino airport at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiUthX62Oqc.

Game day was typical. We practiced very lightly, came back home, rested a bit, then headed back to the arena. It was awesome, the areana was PACKED! They had pre-sold 4,000 tickets for the event, some people traveled from Milano, which is northern Italy, just for the game. It ended up being sold out. The gyms here are made of concrete and steal bleachers = loud and crazy fans. The average had to have been 14 years old, and the crowd was dominated by girls. So you have over 4,000 screaming 14 year girls, who are more into seeing the italians in there super super short shorts, i mean, these are Magic and Bird short!

We won the first set, easily. Started a bit slow in both the first and second sets but the second set we didn't play our best and still managed to pull out a win, surprisingly. We lost the third pretty closely, still not having played our best we were in the set. Then we took it to them in the fourth set and won the match. Had we played the way did last night against Netherlands, they would have wiped us off the floor. We are a much better team than the Italians, we just have to play well, our style of volleyball and we should dominate them tomorrow here in Sicily.

By the way, we got a police escort in a military bus from the airport in Sicily. Apparently this isnt much of tourist town...needless to say as Americans we have two guards that go everywhere we go, even if that is just up the street to get gelato....which we do every night! Don't worry, i found a gym and have been keeping up the body!

This is Day 10, and I'm feeling like my own bed sounds really nice right about now! A lot of us are glad this trip is coming to an end!

I love you all!

Chris