On Sunday 3 January, the Serie A2 will reach the halfway point of the regular season and promote the top 8 teams into the Italian Cup. But this beginning of season is not all about the race to the cup final. There were various novelties among which the live streaming of all the games. The league so far has been incredibly tight and impressively competitive.
The Serie A2 has become more stable as there were no relegations in the past two years. Clubs have been able to consolidate their budget, and many have opted for a different planning for their rosters. Less foreigners and more local talent is the trend. Let’s have a look at the new values of this league.
Italian team
Besides Club Italia, five other clubs out of fourteen decided to give up on foreign players. Mondovì, Brescia, Castellana Grotte, Ortona and Potenza Picena have all gone for local talents. There are indeed only 13 foreigners overall: one Bulgarian, three Dutch, an Australian, one from Cameroon, three Serbians, a Brazilian, two Ukrainians and one Slovakian.
Italian scorers
In the SuperLega, the top scorers are mainly foreigners. This is not the case in the Serie A2. Except for the top four with Da Silva (Civita Castellana), Jeliazkov (Alessano), Mrdak (Tuscania) and Michalovic (Vibo Valentia), in comes Matteo Paoletti (Ortona), Mattia Rosso (Sora), Alberto Cisolla (Brescia), Simmaco Tartaglione (Castellana Grotte), Fabio Bisi (Brescia) and Alessandro Preti (Cantù).
Finally, among the top servers, there were some nice surprises such as Fabio Bisi (born in 1994, second in the chart) or Oreste Cavuto (born 1996, Potenza Picena, third with 20 aces).
Middle blockers and spikers
There are no foreigners among the middle blockers. The best is currently the 28 year old Paolo Alborghetti, but if we only look at the number of blocks, some young names come up such as Gabriele Di Martino (born 1997, Club Italia), Matteo Sperandio (1992, Sora), Luca Presta (1995, Vibo), Simone Scopelliti (1994, Castellana Grotte).
Among spikers and outside hitters, only two foreigners in the top ten: Sora’ Dutch man Hoogendoorn and Vibo’s outside hitter Michalovic. Alongside experienced guys such as Cernic (Alessano) and Manassero 8Mondovì), there are young prospects like Alessandro Tondo (1991, born in Lecce but now in Reggio) and Fabio Bisi (1994, Brescia). Andrea Galaverna has played less games as he landed in Milan at the end of November but the young star born in 1994 is also registering great numbers.
Local talent
The Italian national team has always greatly benefited from the Serie A2. Many players made their debut just after making the step up from second to first division like Luca Vettori (two years at Club Italia, now at Piacenza). Luca Vettori had been selected from Città di Castello in 2010-11. Middle blocker Matteo Piano had his breakthrough years in Città di Castello too. Sabbi and Anzani are other consolidated stars that left their mark in the Serie A2.
From the Serie A2 to the SuperLega
Other SuperLega starters have a recent past in the second divsion. Thomas Beretta and teammate Iacopo Botto are two exemples. Enrico Diamantini (Padova), Andrea Galliani (Monza), Padova’s scorer Giannotti, Alberto Polo (Romagna), Marco Rizzo, (Monza), Roberto Romiti (Molfetta), Federico Tosi (Milan) are more players that learnt the game and made a name for themselves in the Serie A2 before making the jump in the elite.
