The Cuban men's team fell to Italy three sets to one (21-25, 25-22, 19-25, and 13-25) in their third match in the Volleyball Nations League, further distancing themselves from the Olympic dream of Paris 2024.
Cuba, which entered the game under pressure to regain the spot that grants Olympic qualification, dropped 1.44 points in the ranking, now occupying the eleventh place in the qualifying list.
Now it remains to await the performance of Serbia, which will face the United States tonight.
In an erratic game on Thursday night in Ottawa, the Italian national team surpassed Cuba in attack (50-46), blocks (11-6), and serves.
While the first set was evenly matched and the island team won the second set by a narrow margin of 25-22, in the third set the Cuban team once again faced serious issues that Italy took advantage of to pull ahead.
The top scorers for Cuba were Marlon Yant with 16 points and Michael Sánchez with 10.
Cuba showed a lack of coordination. Unforced errors continue to be the team's Achilles' heel, as well as a lack of definition in closing sets, Cubadebate reported.
On Saturday, the Cubans, at the close of their second week, will face France, the Olympic champion of Tokyo 2020.
In the third week, Cuba will be in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where they will face the local team, as well as Bulgaria, Serbia, and Poland.
So far, the teams that have secured their spots for Paris 2024 are: France, as host; Germany, Brazil, Japan, United States, Poland, and Canada.
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