“Let’s see if I still remember how to do it ..”. The year was 1996, Space Jam was released on the big screen and Michael Jordan thus made his debut on the eve of a “mission” that was to help the Looney Tunes win an epic basketball game against a team of aliens, talented thieves, who came from space. It was the baseball months for Air Jordan but basketball for him was a bit like riding a bicycle for mere mortals: if you learn to do it once (and he did it divinely), you will never forget it. A metaphor that fits perfectly with another mission, that of Videx Yuasa Grottazzolina in the 2022/23 sports season. The return to the A2 series three years after the last appearance and a great desire to demonstrate that the second national series is the ideal habitat for a sporting reality with more than fifty years of history behind it.
Get used to an extremely complex and balanced championship as soon as possible and conquer, possibly with equal speed, salvation. These are the cardinal points in the nocturnal firmament of the A2 series to lead the crew of Massimiliano Ortenzi who on October 9 is called to set sail from the port of Grottazzolina with a 6 + 1 confirmed in full compared to last season. The incoming market brought from Serie B the libero Giacomo Giorgini and the spiker Federico Ferrini, flanked by his counterpart Mattia Leli, product of the M&G Scuola Pallavolo nursery. From the A3 (formerly Fano) arrived the center back from the Lube school Filippo Bartolucci while the Chilean spiker Dusan Bonacic arrived from the top Argentine series.
The calendar immediately delivers the tremendous one-two Castellana Grotte-Vibo Valentia: a point won with the Apulians at the debut while the great favorite of the tournament leaves no way out for Vecchi and his companions. After just three matches, the consensual termination of the contract with Manuele Mandolini arrives due to the complication of some problems of a physical nature but the unexpected does not slow down the initiative and enthusiasm of Grottazzolina who in the central phase of the first round wins the palm of authentic outsider of the championship. Four consecutive successes, three of which in the tiebreak, to then hit the coup against Bergamo, again at the PalaGrotta: a 3-1 that is worth fourth place after eight days. The ascent does not stop, after the stop in Brescia here is the success of character on the field of Porto Viro which is followed by two more victories against Cuneo and Ravenna. At the end of the penultimate first round, Videx Yuasa is second, alone.
A performance above all wildest expectations, which brings with it the qualification for the final eight of the Italian Cup series A2.
