Milan, Italy, September 21, 2018 – Italy are up for their sixth straight triumph in their match with Finland, following their sweep in the first round of the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.
Head-to-Head
• This is the third meeting between Italy and Finland at the World Championship. In 1962 Italy won 3-1 and in 1982, Italy won 3-0.
• Italy have won all previous six matches against Finland in world level major tournaments, losing only one set in the process.
• The world level major tournaments are Nations League, Olympic Games, World Championship, World Cup, World League and Grand Champions Cup.
• They also met 13 times at the European Championship, with Italy winning all 13 matches, including the most recent one 3-0 in 2015.
Italy
• Co-hosts Italy started their 2018 World Championship campaign with victories over Japan, Belgium, Argentina, Dominican Republic and Slovenia.
• Italy could start a World Championship with six straight wins for the fourth time, after 2010 (first 7), 1998 (8) and 1978 (6). In 1998, they went on to win the tournament.
• Italy already have more wins at the 2018 World Championship than they had in 2014 (3).
• Including their last match in 2014, Italy could win seven successive World Championship matches for the first time since winning nine in a row in 2006-2010.
• Ivan Zaytsev has the highest success rate in spikes of all players this tournament (63%). His 12 aces are an equal-most and a average of 0.71 aces per set is most among all players at the 2018 World Championship.
Finland
• Finland have won two and lost three matches at the 2018 World Championship.
• Finland need one more victory to have won at least three matches in each of their last six World Championship participations (1966, 1970, 1978, 1982, 2014, 2018). Only in 1952 (0) and 1962 (1) they won fewer than three matches.
• Lauri Kerminen has 38 outstanding digs without recording a mistake. This is the highest among all players without having made a mistake at this tournament.