The Serie A is back after the Cup Final Four won by Cuneo. The big clash of the day is obviously the classic of Italian volleyball: Treviso versus Modena, the 100th in History. Meanwhile, Cuneo will boast its trophy in front of their fans as they face Forli.
Round 17
Thursday 27 January at 8.30pm
M. Roma Volley – Tonno Callipo Vibo Valentia Live on Rai Sport 1
Live streaming on http://www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raisport/multimedia/diretta.html
(Sampaolo-Pasquali)
Sisley Treviso – Casa Modena
(Zucca-Santi)
Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo – Yoga Forlì
(Gini-Ravallese)
Lube Banca Marche Macerata – Acqua Paradiso Monza Brianza
(Pol-Ippoliti)
Andreoli Latina – BCC-NEP Castellana Grotte
(Satanassi-Gnani)
Copra Morpho Piacenza – Marmi Lanza Verona
(Boris-Cesare)
Itas Diatec Trentino – RPA-LuigiBacchi.it San Giustino
(Tanasi-Padoan)
League table
Itas Diatec Trentino 41, Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo 33, Lube Banca Marche Macerata 32, Sisley Treviso 26, Casa Modena 23, Acqua Paradiso Monza Brianza 23, Tonno Callipo Vibo Valentia 22, RPA-LuigiBacchi.it San Giustino 20, M. Roma Volley 19, Copra Morpho Piacenza 17, Marmi Lanza Verona 17, Andreoli Latina 14, BCC-NEP Castellana Grotte 4, Yoga Forlì 3
M. Roma Volley – Tonno Callipo Vibo Valentia
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 3 (2-1 Roma)
Andrea Giani (coach M. Roma Volley): “Vibo is in good form, they’re playing excellent volleyball. They have been galvanised by their qualification for the Italian cup and by the excellent results recently obtained. They say Di Pinto has a few worries with injured players, but I think he will solve them. We’ll try to impose our game, using the weapons we have at our disposal at this moment. At the end of the day, we have quite a few”.
Francesco Prestinenzi (sport director Tonno Callipo Vibo Valentia): “The Italian Cup is over, it filled us with satisfaction but now it’s time to focus on the second half of league regular season. It will be as difficult as the first one, maybe even tougher. We will meet a strong team, which will have the court advantage and the anger of a team needed a win to turn things around. We’re missing quite a few players, we’ll give it a shot but that will be difficult. Our target is to prepare one game at a time and work as we’ve done so far”.
Sisley Treviso – Casa Modena
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 99 (52-47 Treviso)
Roberto Piazza (Sisley Treviso): “Coach Bagnoli, together with Bebeto, Kim Ho Chul and Lozano, is one of the people from whom I’ve learned so much. As I’ve said several times of late, as soon as I’ve heard the news, we called each other and sent each other our best wishes, but I also told him that I wouldn’t like to be in his position right now. It’s a great person so I wish him to do a good job. We went back in training after the cup game against Trento focusing on the next important challenges that we will face. Modena has always made it difficult for us. In the last game, we did a better job than them, but there again, except for the first and fourth set, it was really tight. On court there will be the players and not Bagnoli, so the individual characteristics remain the ones that we already know. Still, we’re expecting a tight, hard fought encounter, in which we’ll have to impose our rhythm”.
Daniele Bagnoli (Casa Modena): “In Modena I found what I expected: an extremely well-organised club and a top level coaching staff. So there is everything needed to do a good job. Modena vs Treviso? I am the coach that has “played” the most “Modena vs Treviso” and in the future I don’t know if there could be any other coach able to take part in as many as I have. Besides, I have had the luck to win many of them, all beautiful, be that when I was in Modena or at Treviso. I had great players. These games make me incredibly excited, this is a very special one for me. Might sound absurd, but I don’t like to play them, like I don’t like to play against my brother Bruno, or when I was in the Russian national team, I didn’t like to play against Italy. As I said on the day of the presentation: I really don’t like to lose at all, to tell you the truth, it makes me feel horrible. So we’ll go to Treviso and we’ll do everything possible to win. We have done a couple of good training sessions, we’ll leave it out on the floor at the PalaVerde, that’s for sure, then we’ll see what happens”.
Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo – Yoga Forlì
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 11 (9-2 Forli)
Simone Parodi (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo): “Following the joy of the cup triumph, we immediately have to focus on our other targets. At the beginning of the season, we had four: the Super Cup, Italian Cup, Champions League and the league. We are halfway through the work. Now, we’re back in the league, and with two games in quick succession. And there will also be the Champions League on Wednesday against the Russians of Belgorod, a very intense week. But we’ll face one game at a time as we always do, with great determination”.
Andrii Diachkov (Yoga Forlì): “We are looking ahead and we are working well. We don’t want to give up. It’s true that we have a big deficit to cut, but if we play at our best we can win a few games. It’s not easy to play for me following last year’s injury, but I always give everything. Sintini always shows maximum fighting spirit, which helps me and all of us, he always believes in it, he sets the example for everyone”.
Lube Banca Marche Macerata – Acqua Paradiso Monza Brianza
PRECEDENTI: 3 (2-1 Macerata)
Igor Omrcen (Lube Banca Marche Macerata): “We want to go as high as possible at the end of the regular season so we have to get as many points as possible in each game we’ll play from now on. Monza is a good team, but as I said various times, we should never think about the opponent but focus on ourselves. On Thursday, we want the victory and we want to play well too, with a good mentality and with determination”.
Luca Monti (coach Acqua Paradiso Monza Brianza): “Mentally we have to get it going. We really want to play well against one of the big guns and we want to find consistency to get a good playoff position because it is our main target to be amongst the top eight”.
Andreoli Latina – BCC-NEP Castellana Grotte
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 5 (4-1 Latina)
Matteo De Cecco (Ass. coach Andreoli Latina): “Besides the importance of the game, which could represent a last chance for Castellana and a confirmation of the good game against Modena for us, this will be a chance for me to see some good friends. It will be great to see Marco Falaschi who was my setter when I was at Massa, there will also be Cicola, opponent of mine thousands of time in beach volley. I repeat, this is important for us to play at the level seen against Modena”.
Flavio Gulinelli (coach BCC-NEP Castellana Grotte): “When I arrived here, I said we had to play 13 finals. I think the one against Latina is the final par excellence. There is no place to hide so we have to go there to win it. We’ll put all our cards on the table, we’ll give everything, point after point, and then we’ll see who wins it. We know our opponents are also aware of how important is this game for them too. They will also give everything to get a result but hopefully we’ll have a little bit of luck on our side. We’ll try everything possible”.
Copra Morpho Piacenza – Marmi Lanza Verona
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 15 (11-4 Verona)
Maxwell Philip Holt (Copra Morpho Piacenza): “I have great memories from the experience in Verona, there was a great atmosphere: a nice city and great fans. I have shared the joy and losses of an excellent team. Now, as far as Piacenza is concerned, every single game until the end of the season will be crucial. We have to play at the maximum of our ability and we have to fight to take the three points against Verona and start to move up the table to reach the playoffs”.
Renaud Herpe (Marmi Lanza Verona): “We’re facing a team that is hurt and that will surely fight hard. We have to get ready for a tough and hard-fought game. We have to think one game at a time and only think about Castellana Grotte after this one. It’s up to us to make further improvement, we need to find consistency by playing each game with fighting spirit”.
Itas Diatec Trentino – RPA-LuigiBacchi.it San Giustino
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 22 (13-9 Trentino)
Massimo Colaci (Itas Diatec Trentino): “It will be important to get back on the winning track but above all play well. San Giustino is a team against which we found it hard to win in the first meeting so we should not take things for granted just because of the gap in the table. Let’s get a good win, after the cup loss we have to look ahead”.
Andrea Sartoretti (Sport director RPA-LuigiBacchi.it San Giustino): “Trento has suffered a defeat that really hurt in the Italian Cup against Cuneo. But in the league, they have never lost at home, they have not even lost a set. But we do not care that much about all this. Each game that we play is extra experience for us and our target is to keep improving game after game”.
