Serie A1
Round 10
Intriguing round in the Serie A as many teams are in the hunt for a ticket in the Italian cups.
Serie A1 round 10
Saturday December 21 at 5.30pm
Exprivia Molfetta – Casa Modena Live on RAI Sport 1
Live streaming on www.raisport.rai.it
(Padoan-Bartolini)
Sunday December 22 at 5.30pm
Calzedonia Verona – Copra Elior Piacenza Live on RAI Sport 1
Live streaming on www.raisport.rai.it
(Pasquali-Rapisarda)
Sunday December 22 at 6pm
Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata – CMC Ravenna Live on Sportube.tv
(Saltalippi-Piersanti)
Sir Safety Perugia – Diatec Trentino
(Tanasi-Cipolla)
Bre Lannutti Cuneo – Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia
(Boris-Genna)
Andreoli Latina – Altotevere Città di Castello
(Puecher-Sampaolo)
League table
Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata 26, Diatec Trentino 20, Copra Elior Piacenza 20, Sir Safety Perugia 18, Calzedonia Verona 15, Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia 12, Casa Modena 12, Bre Lannutti Cuneo 10, Exprivia Molfetta 9, Altotevere Città di Castello 8, CMC Ravenna 8, Andreoli Latina 4
Exprivia Molfetta – Casa Modena
Second consecutive home game for Molfetta against Modena. Crucial game for both teams in their chase of a place in the Italian cup final eight. The southern team is just outside of it right now, but it is just one point behind Cuneo, 8th, and 3 points away from Modena, seventh.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: None
Piscopo Cosimo Marco (Exprivia Molfetta): “Personally, it will be a great emotion to play against a team that welcomed me for four years, I left a piece of my heart there. This game could be defined as a tie to qualify for the cup given that there will be only one more game to play after this. We’re all focused on Saturday’s game, we’ll be up against a team coached by an unbelievable motivator. They will miss some players but surely keep playing at their high standards”.
Angelo Lorenzetti (Coach Casa Modena): “We’re in a peculiar situation: We told ourselves to focus on the day and tomorrow without looking back. The boys have talked and worked well. We hope, want and will do everything possible to be competitive and take the points needed to have a chance to get in the cup when we play the last game, a kind of final at home against Cuneo. Molfetta is an aggressive team in dig, we’ll have to limit Zanuto and Sabbi”.
Calzedonia Verona – Copra Elior Piacenza
Already certain to be in the cup, Verona will try to give more satisfaction to its fans against Piacenza. Giani’s team had a superb performance against Modena, while Piacenza is coming off a Champions League win, which gave them the qualification as first of the group. In the last round, they had lost against Trento.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 20 (15-5 Piacenza)
Andrea Giani (coach Calzedonia Verona): “Important game, we’ll face one of the strongest teams this season. Piacenza will miss two players, among whom Kaliberda who gives balance to the team. But their roster is full of stars, coach Monti has his solutions to make the substitutions. On the other hand, we’ll be without Ter Horst, an important player, we’ll also find an alternative, we worked on that this week. It will be a good game”.
Davide Marra (Copra Elior Piacenza): “Sunday’s game will be a crucial one. Verona is having an excellent season, this is a very good team with quality players in every department. This will not be an easy road game at all, we know it. But the important thing is to let behind the poor game played in Trento”.
Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata – CMC Ravenna
Macerata has secured first place in the league at the halfway point of the season and qualification in the Champions League, even if that is as second. They will look for victory number 10. Ravenna will miss a couple of players but will try everything to keep its chance of a cup qualification alive.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 15 (9-6 Macerata)
Leondino Giombini (Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata): “This will be a special game for me, I played for four years in Ravenna. For us this is an opportunity to extend our winning streak to ten, and we want to make the most of this last game before the break, which will give us a bit of time to rest after a truly intense period. Ravenna will be without a couple of players but our focus must remain high”.
Marco Bonitta (Coach CMC Ravenna): “The game in Macerata would have been extremely tough in any case, but it’s a shame to go there with 8 players and without three of our starters. But we’ll give everything we’ve got and try not to do too bad”.
Sir Safety Perugia – Diatec Trentino
Top level game at the PalaEvangelisti arena. Perugia plays host to the Italian champions. A win would get them into second place given that only two points separate the two teams. But Serniotti’s men are coming off a brilliant win over Piacenza which took them over Perugia and are eager to defend the second place they so nicely earned.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 3 (All 3 for Trento)
Carmine Fontana (Ass.coach Sir Safety Perugia): “We have to be prepared to face various line-ups and different tactical situations given that we don’t know if Trento will be missing players or not. It will be important to study every possibility. Trento’s main strength is on the break, that is to say the block-dig area and counter, but let’s not forget that a setter of Suxho’s quality gives many solutions to their first attacks. This will be a good test to understand where we can stand in this league. I think one of our qualities is that we fight for every point and we react well through the tough times. We’ve always done it, and we’ll need to do that again on Sunday, without ever giving up”.
Filippo Lanza (Diatec Trentino): “Perugia is a really interesting team, with many talented youngsters who perfectly mix up with the experienced ones. Taking points from there will be nothing easy, especially with the couple of important players we’ll be missing. I think the key will be our attitude, if we can play at a good level from the start we’ll have our chance, otherwise it’s going to be difficult”.
Bre Lannutti Cuneo – Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia
Thrilling game with the Italian cup at stake. Piazza’s boys are currently 8th but Molfetta, Città di Castello and Ravenna are all on the chase. A win would do them a lot of good but they’ll be up against one of the most in-form teams of the league. Two consecutive wins against Trento and Città di Castello took Vibo up to 6th, and very close to taking part in the cup for the fourth year in a row.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 19 (16-3 Cuneo)
Daniele De Pandis (Bre Lannutti Cuneo): “We’ll be without Rouzier and Rauwerdink. This is a crucial game for us, we’ll try to get the three points we need to get in the top eight and the cup. It would be nice as well to end the season on a positive performance, hoping that 2014 could bring us more consistency, confidence and more determination”.
Alberto Cisolla (Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia): “Very difficult road game, this is one of the strongest teams in the league and they have had a poor first half of season, so they’ll definitely be desperate to get back up the table. We’ll try to play our game and face this encounter with the mentality we had in the last two games, trying to do the things we know without worrying who’s on the other side of the net. There are important points at stake for the Italian cup, but I think it’s better to think about that at the end in order not to add any pressure”.
Andreoli Latina – Altotevere Città di Castello
It’s not been an easy ride, but Latina qualified for the Challenge Cup 8th of finals this week through the golden set. Santilli’s boys are however bottom of the league and desperately looking for points against Città di Castello. The latter have been defeated 3-0 in its last two games against Cuneo and Vibo but there’s still in the hunt of a cup ticket.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 2 (Both for Latina)
Sergio Noda Blanco (Andreoli Latina): “We’re coming off a cup qualification won in ten minutes in a golden set dominated from start to finish. We proved we could do those kind of breakthrough last year already. This has to give us a boost to face Città di Castello. This is a crucial game for us, we must get back on track in the league”.
Antonio Corvetta (Altotevere Città di Castello): “Sunday’s game will be a great opportunity for our young players to show their skills. This will be a tough game, but the line-up we’ll send on court will fight for every point and will try to play the best volleyball possible to try to get a positive result”.
Serie A2
Round 10
Three teams have already secured their tickets into the Del Monte Italian Cup final four: Padova, Matera and Monza. There’s one place left up for grabs and 3 contenders: Sora, Ortona and Potenza.
Elettrosud Brolo – Materdominivolley.it Castellana Grotte. Having taken its first point in Milan, Brolo will try to add to it at home. Castellana Grotte has taken points in the past two rounds, first a valuable home win versus Milan, and then a point against the league leader, Padova.
Itely Milano – B-Chem Potenza Picena. <SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; COLOR: #464646; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareas
