Serie A1
Round 11: at stake a place in the Italian Cup quarter-finals.
On Wednesday January 8, the last round of the first half of season in the Serie A1 will take place at 8.30pm. Piacenza versus Macerata is the big game of the day as the two teams will meet for the first of three times having been drawn together in the Champions League playoffs 12. At stake in this last round, there will be the last tickets for the Del Monte Italian Cup quarter-finals. The teams already qualified are Macerata, Piacenza, Trento, Perugia and Verona, while three places are still up for grabs.
Serie A1 round 11
Wednesday January 8 at 8.30pm
Copra Elior Piacenza – Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata Live on RAI Sport 1
Live streaming on www.raisport.rai.it
(Boris-La Micela)
Casa Modena – Bre Lannutti Cuneo
(Sobrero-Gnani)
Altotevere Città di Castello – Sir Safety Perugia
(Saltalippi-Santi)
Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia – Exprivia Molfetta Live on Sportube.tv
(Ravallese-Tanasi)
Diatec Trentino – Calzedonia Verona
(Satanassi-Zucca)
CMC Ravenna – Andreoli Latina
(Vagni-Frapiccini)
League table
Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata 29, Copra Elior Piacenza 23, Diatec Trentino 22, Sir Safety Perugia 19, Calzedonia Verona 15, Bre Lannutti Cuneo 13, Casa Modena 13, Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia 12, Exprivia Molfetta 11, Altotevere Città di Castello 8, CMC Ravenna 8, Andreoli Latina 7
Copra Elior Piacenza – Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata
RAI SPORT will follow the big game of the day as Piacenza and Macerata will meet up three times this month. While both teams are already qualified in the cup and Macerata have already secured first place, Piacenza will try to defend their second place as Trentino is lurking just one point behind.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 32 (16 each)
Davide Marra (Copra Elior Piacenza): “We all know tomorrow’s game will be tough, full of difficulties. We’ll have to stay focused in the difficult times, which will surely not go amiss. But I think our opponents could have negative spells too. We’ll meet Piacenza two more times in just a couple of weeks. Tomorrow’s result will have no influence on the Champions League games. We have to concentrate on one single encounter, we must be aware that each game is different”.
Dragan Stankovic (Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata): “We’re back on court after the break with a big game that will seal the first half of season. We know how good are Piacenza’s players, useless to underline how tough that will be, we’ll need maximum focus because this is a crucial game, for the league table too. We want to try to stay unbeaten and win this last regular season game too. This will be a preview of the Champions League clash, another reason to aim for the win”.
Casa Modena – Bre Lannutti Cuneo
There’s a feeling of final as they are tied on points in sixth and seventh place in the table. Modena will line up its latest brilliant signing, the Brazilian setter Bruno Mossa De Rezende. Maximum points for any team could mean not only a place in the cup but also the fifth position in the table if Verona was not to gain any points against Trento. Both teams will be qualified for the cup if Molfetta loses or if Molfetta takes all three points. A tie-break would knock out the loser if the latter was not to take any point.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 69 (35-34 Cuneo)
Angelo Lorenzetti (Coach Casa Modena): “This is our last chance to get in the cup, and like I said before, it pretty much looks like a final. The training we have done to get to this encounter is not the kind us coach like very much but in the meantime we’ll give our best in this game, with maximum fighting spirit and will to win. Then, we’ll resume our normal rhythm of training. Cuneo struggled at the start of the season, because of Grabic’s situation and Gonzalez’s injury, then it improved. They have an excellent squad and they’re coming back to their usual best. They have a lot of alternatives in the team they can use during games, so they become difficult to read”.
Alberto Casadei (Bre Lannutti Cuneo): “This will be a crucial game to finish the first half of season on a high. Thanks to our victory over Vibo, we have a chance in Modena to reach a good position in the table and qualify for the Cup. Even if we have worked without our foreign players, we prepared well, with a couple of training sessions with Piacenza. We are aware of how important this game is and we’ll be ready, both technically and physically”.
Altotevere Città di Castello – Sir Safety Perugia
First meeting in the A1 although both have met in the lower division between 2010 and 2012. The newly promoted slide, already out of the cup, will try to make Perugia stumble. Perugia has not won since November 24 but are already qualified for the Cup.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 5 (3-2 Città di Castello)
Andrea Radici (Coach Altotevere Città di Castello): “On the one hand, there is a great will to play a game that matters after a few days spent in the gym to work individually, on the other hand we don’t know how it will turn out as we trained without our two foreign players. We’ll play with maximum focus to get a win to finish a first half of season in which we have overcome the first barrier, the consistency”.
Slobodan Kovac (Coach Sir Safety Perugia): “We’re going to play a derby, a very special game, we need maximum fighting spirit with will to conquer the world. It’s not easy to get back in action after the break as we were without some of our players. But this is a problem our opponents will have too. They have a good team, they play well at home, I know this will be a very tough game. We’ll have to do a good job of imposing our game and trying to limit their main guys in attack, Fromm and Van Walle. We finished 2013 a bit disappointed, we want to get off to a good start in 2014”.
Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia – Exprivia Molfetta
First southern derby in the top division between Vibo and Molfetta. But they had already met in the A2 in 2003-04. At stake: a place in the Italian cup. Newly promoted, this would be the first ever participation for Cichello’s men. Molfetta is currently 9th and will need a three-point win, while Vibo will need at least two points to stay in the top 8.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 2 (Vibo won both)
Gianlorenzo Blengini (Coach Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia): “I expect my team to bounce back from the loss conceded before Christmas. We’ll need determination, will to get a result. Molfetta could train with all its players, not us, but that’s part of the game. The match is obviously crucial for the cup qualification. I think we have to find our rhythm again and build on the good things done at home. Molfetta is a team that does not make many mistakes, they have one of the most prolific scorers of the league in Sabbi, who’s at the level of the Sokolov, Atanasijevic and Zaytsev. They also have players like Saitta and Mazzone, regularly called in the Italian national team. We’ll not only try to limit Sabbi but also to create as many difficulties for them in this fight to get into the top eight”.
Juan Manuel Cichello (Coach Exprivia Molfetta): “We are close to the 8th place, we’ll have another chance to get into the Cup quarter finals. That would be yet another prestigious achievement for this team and this club, which arrived in the elite very recently but which is already proud of the important results obtained. We’ll see if the new year will bring us our first points on the road”.
Diatec Trentino – Calzedonia Verona
Following the announcement of Bruno Da Re as new General Manager, Trentino will start this 2014 with the aim to reach the second place, which would give the team a better draw in the cup quarter-finals. The opponent of the day will be Verona, which will be in the cup for the third time (2004-05, semis against Vibo, and 2008-09, quarters lost against Cuneo). Giani’s men will fight hard to defend their fifth position.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 21 (17-4 Trento)
Massimo Colaci (Diatec Trentino): “This will be a great game because Verona is coming off a good first half of season and they’ll come to Trento to improve their excellent standing in the table, while we can still hope for second place. This will be a special game for me because I played in Verona before coming to Trentino Volley. I cannot forget those years, they have been important for me, that’s where I made myself noticed by Trento”.
Andrea Giani (Coach Calzedonia Verona): “Our foreign players are back in Verona following their World Cup qualifying games. The rest of the team trained well during the four-day training camp with Ankara. This was particularly useful to learn training methods of our guests. We’re up against a strong opponent in Trento, they have proved how good they were so far. This will be an important game, crucial to determine the match-ups of the Italian Cup”.
CMC Ravenna – Andreoli Latina
Out of the contest in which most of the other teams are involved right now, Ravenna and Latina will focus on one single target: improve its position in the league. Both have only registered two wins but they intend on starting this new year building on the progress seen at the end of the last.
PAST ENCOUNTERS: 4 (3-1 Ravenna)
Marco Bonitta (coach CMC Ravenna): “This is a strange game I would have preferred to play right after those against Perugia and Molfetta, leaving out the weird last round of 2013. If we talk about International players who missed training, Latina was more or less in the same conditions as ours, but the addition of Starovic was definitely a positive aspect for them. I think their main strength is the reception. I expect it to be a tough game. We have to win it, to get up the table and start this new year on a positive note”.
Davide Candellaro (Andreoli Latina): “Ravenna is a good team even if they have, just like us, a position in the table that does not reflect their real worth. We have to get some points and try to get the best result possible. We’re coming off a long break, which can be good as well as bad: we could rest and recharge our batteries but we lost our rhythm. But we’re confident in our abilities”.
