The second week of the 2026 VNL (Volleyball Nations League) is upon us, with five Cucine Lube Civitanova players among the squads for their respective national teams. The 18 teams, divided into three groups of six teams, will take to the courts from Wednesday, June 24th to Sunday, June 28th. Pool 4 will take place in France, Pool 5 in Poland, and Pool 6 in Slovenia, where coach Giampaolo Medei and new sporting director Marko Podrascanin will be present as observers.
The competition kicks off with a European leg. At 1:00 PM on Wednesday, in Ljubljana, the Cucine Lube Civitanova derby between two Lube spikers will begin. Separated by the net, Mattia Bottolo and Alex Nikolov will face off on Slovenian soil in the match between Italy and Bulgaria. Also on Wednesday, Belgium’s middle blocker Wout D’heer will face hosts Poland in Gliwice, while at 8:30 p.m., in Orléans, France’s spiker Noa Duflos-Rossi will make their second-leg debut in front of their home crowd against Iran. At the same time, but in Ljubljana, spiker Eric Loeppky and his Canada team will try to trip up hosts Slovenia.
