Gas Sales Bluenergy Volley Piacenza has been in Lüneburg, a town in Lower Saxony about sixty kilometers from Hamburg, since early this afternoon. A flight from Linate to Hamburg and a subsequent bus transfer brought the red and whites to the German city where tomorrow evening, Wednesday, April 15th, (7:00 PM live on DAZN and SKY) the first leg of the CEV Volleyball Cup Final will be played at the LKH Arena in Lüneburg, against the German team SVG Lüneburg. The referees will be Bartolomiej Adamczyk of Poland and Sebastien Jacob of France.
The red and whites will train late this afternoon at the LKH Arena, with final training tomorrow morning.
After defeating the Germans from Berlin Reycling Volleys in the quarterfinals and the Slovenian side ACH Volley Ljubljana, Gas Sales Bluenergy Volley Piacenza faces yet another German team, which finished the Bundesliga regular season in first place with 74 points after 28 matches played. In the playoffs, Lüneburg won the championship after beating Herrschin 3-0 (25-20, 25-18, 25-21) in the first leg at home and 3-1 (13-25, 25-22, 18-25, 21-25) in the return leg away from home. In the semifinals, they defeated Duren 3-0 (25-18, 33-31, 25-15) in Game 1 in front of their home crowd and will play Game 2 on Sunday, April 19th. This season, they’ve already secured a spot against Zoi DVV, defeating Friedrichshafen in a tiebreak (26-27, 25-21, 16-25, 25-21, 8-15).
The Lüneburg team is multinational: three German players are on the roster, while the remaining players are three Americans, three Canadians, two Swedes, a Finn, a Dane, and a Japanese. The coach is German Stefan Hubner. A blend of experienced and talented young players, this compact team plays good volleyball and thrives on the court.
In Europe, Luneburg started the season in the CEV Champions League in Group D and finished in third place in the group, being relegated to the CEV Volleyball Cup where in the semi-final they overcame the Belgians from Greenyard Maaseik by winning the first leg played in Belgium 3-1 (25-15, 20-25, 22-25, 24-26) and the return leg played in Germany 3-2 (27-25, 28-26, 23-25, 23-25, 16-14).
