A few days after the external blow at PalaBarton, Rana Verona returns to the pitch in front of his own fans to face the midweek round, which coincides with the nineteenth matchday of the SuperLega Credem Banca. The Scaligeri team are preparing to receive Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza, the current third force in the championship, and on the eve Coach Stoytchev spoke at a press conference to present the challenge.
These are his words: “For us, week by week, the championship becomes more and more difficult. This match is very important in a different way than the others, not because they were less important, but now we have reached the stage in which the points are all decisive for the Play Offs. The next two, three matches can change many things, we can go up or DESCEND. Afterwards Milan, Cisterna and Civitanova await us, so it is essential to keep our attention high. Piacenza plays well and is very strong at bat, does a lot of damage with players like Lucarelli, Brizard, Romanó. In attack they have high percentages. We have had a few days of preparation, we need to find the right key so as not to waste the chances that arise. It won’t be easy at all, we need a lot of positive energy around the team and the support of the fans.”
“We’ve been working a lot in reception for three, four months and we’ve improved a lot in this – continued the Scaliger coach – but it doesn’t give me absolute confidence because in a match like the one against Piacenza it’s tough with the players they have available. We will have to be good at changing the ball, but we will see how the match develops. The path of the other teams? I’m only interested in what we do and I focus on that. Unfortunately for us the start of the season was very complicated, we lost a lot of points and we got to the point of having to do it with the strong ones. My wish is that we can finish the regular season in the best possible way. Piacenza comes from a defeat, so they come here to win, I don’t expect them to arrive without motivation, because they aim to win the scudetto. We have to be patient and play volleyball well. It’s not enough to leave things half done and we must do them with quality. In Perugia in the third set, on a serve series by Mozic, blocking, defense and counterattack worked.”
Coach Stoytchev then continued: “The joke? It may be a key, but I think that every game is different, one game you win with one fundamental and the next with another. It is obvious that serving increases the chances of winning, but this is not the only fundamental we want to focus on.
