I'M FOND OF VOLLEYBALL

                  

I love volleyball, it’s my favourite sport and the one I’ve been practicing since I was a child. Did you know that volleyball was invented by William Morgan, an American gym teacher, in 1895? It is a team sport. There are six players, and every player has a position:

• Outside Hitter (also called wing spiker, left side)
• Opposite Hitter (attacker)
• Setter
• Middle Blocker (center, middle Hitter)
• Libero
• Defensive Specialist
  


An important rule is that the ball mustn’t touch your portion of the pitch.
The six basic volleyball skills are passing, setting, spiking, blocking, digging, and serving. Passing is often thought of as the most important skill in volleyball. If you can't pass the serve, then you won't ever put your team in a position to score a point.







VOLLEYBALL vs BEACH VOLLEY 
These two sports are different. There must be five people to play volleyball. Instead beach volley needs one more person. The place where you play beach volley is the seaside. For this reason playing volleyball is easier than playing beach volley.
Both men and women can play volleyball. For example,  in ,  there are female teams and male teams.
THE ITALIAN FEMALE NATIONAL TEAM 
The Italian female national team first played in 1951, in Alessandria, against France. At present our national team includes Carlotta Cambi, Monica De Gennaro, Cristina Chirichella, Miriam Sylla, Elena Petrini  and Paola Egonu.



Paola Egonu is the strongest player of the team. Her position is opposite spiker. She is Italian but her parents are Nigerians. Last year Italy was winning, but then they lost against Serbia. They got the second position, it was a very satisfying, exciting  match to watch.





THE ITALIAN NATIONAL MALE TEAM 
The team started their activity in 1948. 
The most famous players are Filippo Lanza, Simone Giannelli, Osmany Juantorena, Oleg Antonov Massimo Colaci and Ivan Zaytsev.  
Simone Giannelli is the setter, and he is one of the best players (he is 200 cm tall!)
Osmany Juantorena is a very strong middle-blocker, he is Italian but his parents are Cubans  (also Osmany is 200 cm tall!)
 Oleg Antonov of Russian origin is tall 198 cm, his position is hitter spiker



Then there is Ivan Zaytsev, or ZAR. He has Russian origins, his position is opposite spiker and he is one of the best players in the world. Ivan is 204 cm tall and his serve reaches 134 km\h!
Three years ago, in 2016, in Rio De Janeiro, they were runners-up getting the silver medal. The semi-final against USA was very exciting. Unfortunately,  they lost against Brazil (3-0).
THE STRONGEST TEAMS
Strongest female teams in the world are Brazil, China, Italy and the USA. Instead, the strongest male ones are Poland, Italy, Brazil, USA and Russia.






MARTINA