Italy is led by Latvia

Greg Ireland's team had lost all three tests before the qualifying tournament, but still thought they had outside chances in the opening game against Latvia. Not least because at this year's World Cup the Azzurri, who were weakened at the time, demanded everything from Latvia (0:3). With the best cast “Spoil the party for the hosts” , was now the target of the Ireland troops. But nothing came of it: Latvia never had any doubts about their victory and deservedly won 6-0. In the well-attended Riga Arena, the Latvian fans felt from the start that their team was in no danger of losing the game against Italy. The differences in speed, technique and game intelligence were too great. And so it only took three and a half minutes before shouts of celebration broke out in the stands for the first time: Janis Jaks pulled away from the blue line and surprised Andreas Bernard, whose view was cleverly blocked. Around two minutes later, Latvia increased the lead to 2-0 after the Azzurri were outplayed in their own zone in a textbook manner. Rodrigo Abols completed the remarkable combination (6th). It took Italy a long time to recover from this double blow. It was only in the final phase of the third that an individual action by Stefano Giliati and shots from a central position by Simon Kostner and Thomas Larkin created a goal threat. Latvia dominates Instead of providing continuity to these attacking efforts, the Blue Team completely collapsed in the second period. While Italy had been able to make the opening third more or less even, now only the hosts played. A great puck relay, refined by Kristians Rubins (27th), and a double-numbered goal from Miks Indrasis (30th) set the course for victory and the score to 4-0. To illustrate how dominant Latvia was in the middle section, just look at the shooting statistics, which recorded 17 Latvian and only 3 Italian shots. The outsider no longer believed in catching up. After all, he tried to score the consolation goal and therefore played freely forward. The Azzurri also managed to create a goal threat in the person of Angelo Miceli, but Ivars Punnenovs' goal remained clean that evening. On the other side, Bernard had to reach behind him twice more when Lorenzo Casetti directed an Indrasis pass into his own goal (49') and Kaspars Daugavins made his opponents look old with a solo effort (53'). No time to breathe Things will continue for the Ireland squad on Friday when the second group game against France, who defeated Hungary 5-3 on Thursday, takes place in Riga (15 p.m.). A win is mandatory. Olympic qualification: Italy - Latvia 0:6 Goals: 0:1 Jaks (3.23), 0:2 Abols (5.28), 0:3 Rubins (26.15), 0:4 Indrasis (29.48), 0:5 Indrasis (48.56), 0:6 Daugavins (52.57)

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Italy is led by Latvia

Italy's national ice hockey team is on the verge of elimination after the first game at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Riga: The Azzurri didn't have the slightest chance on Thursday evening against the Latvians, who were superior in all respects.

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