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Semifinal July 12

SemifinalsAfter playing text-book quality Volley-ball in the preliminaries Serbia and Mon-tenegro went on to deliver a Volleyball lesson to Italy in the opening semifinal in straight sets to earn their first ever place in the final of this elite annual men’s Volleyball competition. It was the sixth win for Serbia and Montenegro against their geographic neighbors Italy from 13 World League clashes since the competi-tion began 14 years ago. For Serbia and Montenegro, the Grbic brothers Nikola and Vladimir (Vanja), arguably the most famous siblings in the sport, combined in a dazzling display of tactical Vol-

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Serbia & Montenegro v. ItalySerbia & Montenegro v. ItalySerbia & Montenegro v. Italy

Hristo Zlatanov attacks for Italy

All eyes on the ball for Serbia and Montenegro

Miljkovic and Dula Mester show excellent defense against Italy’s cap-tain Andrea Giani

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leyball and together with their teammates, contrived to both outfox and outplay the Squadra Azzura.However, if the first semifinal was amazing, Brazil was set to dazzle in the second. If Vol-leyball was an opera, it fell to Brazil to sing the leading aria as they faced newcomers the Czech Republic and with a swift three set victory, all that stood between them and their third World League title was to sing the encore against Olympic Champions Serbia and Montenegro in the final. For the second year running, Italy was to play off for the bronze medal against World League debutants the Czech Republic.

Czech Republic v. BrazilCzech Republic v. Brazil

Semifinals July 1212-Jul YUG-ITA 3-0

26-24 25-22 25-16

12-Jul BRA-CZE 3-0

25-12 25-20 25-18

Martin Lebl was one of the Czech Republic’s best scorers against Brazil

Sérgio celebrates as Brazil reaches the World League Final

Semifinal July 12

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Places 3-4 July 13

Bronze medal matchVolleyball’s “Old World” triumphed over the sport’s “New World” in the play off for bronze when eight-time World League winners Italy came from behind to defeat debutants the Czech Republic 3-1 in four strenuous sets. The Czechs, with nothing to lose, looked serious and Jakub Novotny was in “smashing” form helping his team to take the first set when Martin Lebl had the honor of stabbing home the 25-22 winner. Italian mini-packs Matej Cernic (192 cm) and Samuele Papi (190 cm) put Italy well in front in the second set to level at one set all. And Italy looked a different side in the vital third and quickly ran up an 18-14 lead, helped by some piercing spikes by Papi and Alessandro Fei. At 22-16 they looked strong but Czech Republic clawed back to 22-20. Then Novotny’s serve went wide and Italy had set point. Lebl defended the first but not the second and Italy had a 2-1 lead. The Czech team came on strong in the fourth set and had the margin at 11-7 and 13-11 until Papi dropped a shot over to equalize at 13-all. At 16-14 Italy had bought their tickets for the glory train. They squandered their first match point when Fei’s serve went wide but then Marek Novotny did the same and the bronze medal belonged to Italy.

Martin Lebel on his way to scoring14 points for the Czech Republic

Luigi Mastrangelo spikes into the Czech defense

Samuele Papi completes an Italian attack

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Italy - Czech Republic

Places 3-4 July 1313-Jul ITA-CZE 3-1

22-25 25-22 25-22 25-19

Italy claim the bronze medal

High fi ves for Czech Republic libero Premysl Obdrzalek

Marco Meoni sets up Alessandro Fei

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Serbia & Montenegro - BrazilThe Final

An epic contest between two great sides

Libero for Serbia and Montenegro Vasa Mijic reaches to make the receive

Goran Vujevic spikes past André Hel-ler (No 4)

Final July 13Two form teams turned on what will go down as one of the best finals in the history of the World League. It was unfortunate that someone had to lose but in the end Brazil triumphed in an epic 3-2 marathon just seven minutes shy of two hours. It was a truly great contest between the sport’s poets (Brazil) and its warriors (Serbia and Montenegro) in front more than 10,000 Volleyball aficionados.Driven on by bongo drums and near hysterical fans, Brazil had Giovani Gavio and Andre Nascimento deliver-ing a full range of killer spikes to take the first set 25-16. Serbia and Mon-tenegro tried to settle quickly in the second set and eventually sealed it to draw even. By now the underdogs had caught hold of Brazil’s coat tails and were challenging them at their own masterly game of deception to polish off the third set 25-19 and take a 2-1 lead. Serbia’s early lead in the fourth stilled the hysteria in the stands but Brazil took the set to force what will surely be one of the great tiebreakers. What followed was pure drama and although the ball finally dropped for Brazil at 31-29, both teams should have been showered with glory.Brazil finished the match as the World League titleholders in addition to their World Championship title and new position on top of the FIVB world rankings, but they left Spain with the greatest respect for Serbia and Montenegro.

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Serbia & Montenegro - Brazil

Places 1-2 July 1313-Jul YUG-BRA 2-3

16-25 25-21 25-19 23-25 29-31

Brazil are 2003 World League champions

So close: A hugely disappointed Slobodan Boskan

Ivan Miljkovic tips over André Nascimento

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Best Players of the Finals

Ivan Miljkovic’s right arm must be revered around most of Serbia and Montenegro because it was respon-sible for seeing Ivan “The Terrible” walk away from the World League Finals with the Best Scorer title for the third year running. The 206cm 24-year-old has been an instrumen-tal figure in the recent success of Serbia and Montenegro and again proved unstoppable registering a mammoth 78 spikes in two games.Miljkovic debuted in international

Volleyball in 1998 at the World Champi-onship in Japan where Serbia and Montenegro placed third. Two years later he played a decisive role in Serbia and Mon-

tenegro’s gold medal winning per-formance at the Sydney Olympics before more recently finishing as top scorer at the 2001 European champi-onship and second-best scorer at last year’s World Championship.

Best scorer

Ivan Miljkovic

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Best Players of the Finals

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Martin LeblNo 1 in the Czech Republic lineup Martin Lebl is huge in every sense of the word and was an immense fi gure in the Czech Republic’s stunning run through to the World League semifi nals. His presence on top of the Best Spiker standings with a success ratio of 44.59% is a signifi cant refl ection of the quality of his play and the

role he has in the Czech Republic team. At 201cm and 108kgs he has a huge presence on court and his physical approach gives plenty of headaches to opposing sides. But most of all he is a monster attacking weapon for the Czechs and, just as accustomed on defense at the block, Lebl is guaranteed to feature as one of the most potent and destructive weapons around the net for many years to come.

Best spiker

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Best Players of the Finals

Andrija GericThe 203cm middle blocker from Novi Sad had a fantastic 2003 World League and it showed in the statistics, with him fi nishing as the Best Blocker and Best Server, while also fi nishing sev-enth on the Best Scorer rankings, prov-ing that this 26-year-old is reaching the prime of his career. Big in stature, Andrija Geric was often seen spurring

on his team, offering advice or leading the group celebra-tions and he is clearly an inspiration to a team ripe with practical talent like Miljkovic, the Grbic brothers, Goran Vujevic and others. Never one to turn down a moment to involve the crowd Geric thrived on the atmosphere of the converted bullring of Vistalegre Stadium and proved to be one of Serbia and Montenegro’s fi nest, using his massive 203cm, 101kg frame to the best effect. Geric has been an integral part of the Serbia and Montenegro side (formerly Yugoslavia) since 1995 and was inspirational in Yugoslavia’s gold medal performance at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the European Championship win a year later and the last fi ve World Leagues.

Best blocker

Best server

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Best Players of the Finals

Best scorersRk. Shirt Name Team Spike Block Serve Total1 14 Miljkovic Ivan YUG 78 8 9 952 4 Novotny Jakub CZE 61 11 2 743 9 Nascimento André BRA 45 9 5 594 1 Lebl Martin CZE 42 12 3 575 3 Gavio Giovane BRA 39 6 9 54 12 Bitencourt Nalbert BRA 40 10 4 54 12 Geric Andrija YUG 27 16 11 548 14 Fei Alessandro ITA 37 12 3 529 13 Giani Andrea ITA 46 3 1 5010 1 Mastrangelo Luigi ITA 29 14 3 46 6 Papi Samuele ITA 38 7 1 46

Best spikersRk. Shirt Name Team Spikes Faults Shots Total Eff. Atts. %1 1 Lebl Martin CZE 42 9 23 74 44.592 4 Novotny Jakub CZE 61 23 43 127 29.923 14 Miljkovic Ivan YUG 78 33 51 162 27.784 9 Nascimento André BRA 45 14 54 113 27.435 6 Papi Samuele ITA 38 11 51 100 27.006 13 Vujevic Goran YUG 41 18 30 89 25.847 12 Bitencourt Nalbert BRA 40 17 35 92 25.008 13 Giani Andrea ITA 46 21 47 114 21.939 3 Gavio Giovane BRA 39 10 20 69 10 12 Dubs Ivo CZE 24 14 26 64

Best blockersRk. Shirt Name Team Blocks Faults Rebounds Total Avg. Atts by set1 12 Geric Andrija YUG 16 30 24 70 0.842 1 Mastrangelo Luigi ITA 14 28 35 77 0.703 1 Lebl Martin CZE 12 23 30 65 0.674 4 Novotny Jakub CZE 11 9 14 34 0.615 14 Fei Alessandro ITA 12 25 39 76 0.606 4 Heller André BRA 12 24 21 57 0.607 9 Grbic Nikola YUG 10 10 15 35 0.538 12 Bitencourt Nalbert BRA 10 10 21 41 0.509 14 Santana Rodrigo BRA 10 24 19 53 0.5010 9 Nascimento André BRA 9 14 15 38 0.45

Best serversRk. Shirt Name Team Aces Faults Serve Total Avg. Hits Atts by set1 12 Geric Andrija YUG 11 25 49 85 0.582 14 Miljkovic Ivan YUG 9 21 50 80 0.473 3 Gavio Giovane BRA 9 7 41 57 0.454 9 Nascimento André BRA 5 22 36 63 0.255 14 Santana Rodrigo BRA 4 4 73 81 0.206 12 Bitencourt Nalbert BRA 4 15 58 77 0.207 12 Dubs Ivo CZE 3 7 48 58 0.178 1 Lebl Martin CZE 3 21 32 56 0.179 4 Heller André BRA 3 2 56 61 0.1510 1 Mastrangelo Luigi ITA 3 15 51 69 0.15

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