Cucine Lube Civitanova chasing a comeback in the Quarter-Finals of the CEV Champions League. Defeated last Tuesday 3-1 in Turkey, tomorrow, Wednesday 15 March (at 20.30 with Eurosport 2, Discovery+ and Radio Arancia live) the Italian champions will host Halkbank Ankara at the Eurosuole Forum. Captain Luciano De Cecco and his companions will need a full victory (3-0 or 3-1) to reopen the match and play everything in the Golden Set. The other results are in vain, including the victory at the tie break.
The staff of the cooking team is fighting against time to get back Marlon Yant, a spiker who remained in the pits on Sunday after a sprain received in Turkey in the first match against Ankara. The opposite Ivan Zaytsev, on the bench over the weekend in Perugia, is eager to get back on the pitch.
In the Champions League, Cucine Lube took first place in Pool C unbeaten and is facing the quarter-finals for the fifth consecutive season, but in the first leg, marred by Yant’s injury and by a dull team performance in a palas on fire, came a tough 3-1 defeat. After winning the 2018/19 Champions League, the Italian champions were never able to play a European semi-final again. Civitanova in the last two seasons has come out in the quarterfinals at the hands of Polish clubs, last year Jastrzebski, two years ago Zaksa. Going backwards, in the 2019/20 season Lube won the quarter-final against the Belgian sextet of Roeselare before the tournament was stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In SuperLega Credem Banca, after four victories in a row (Cisterna and Piacenza at home, Siena away and Milan at home), Lube fell in three sets in Perugia on the last day of the return leg, finishing fourth in the Regular Season and finding WithU Verona (fifth) in the Play Off Scudetto quarter-finals to the best of five matches. Debut Sunday 19 March (6pm) at home.
