Identity card in hand, he still remains the youngest ever on the ErmGroup San Giustino roster, even if this time only for a matter of a few months compared to his new teammates Marco Romanacci and Gabriel Galiano. Lorenzo Panizzi, spiker from Città di Castello, will turn 18 on July 24th and definitively completes the blue and white team with placement in the “rose” of spikers in hand, after last season he almost always followed the senior team as second opposite. And at 17 years and three months, he also made his debut in the Serie A3 Credem Banca championship: a brief change on 1 November 2023, during the match won 3-2 by the biancazzurri at the sports hall against Banca Macerata, which remains his only presence on the Taraflex. Panizzi instead played in the Under 19 championship as a forward for the band, also playing two tournaments. The change of role in the first team actually doesn’t mean anything to him, therefore: “It’s fine like this – he said – because this confirmation is a nice bonus and an incentive to do better. In my second year, I have to make a leap in quality.” And also on Panizzi, as he did for all the others, the director Valdemaro Gustinelli intervenes. “Lorenzo, for the second consecutive season, will be part of the first team roster and this year will be the only representative of the white and blue cantera: this says a lot – underlines Gustinelli – about the importance of such a choice. I don’t deny that we also evaluated other options for the boy but – as is our custom – priority was given to his will, which was clearly geared towards the choice to remain within the first team group. I expect a further step from him: if last year everything was new and everything was “justifiable”, this time it won’t be like that; Lorenzo is to all intents and purposes one of the 14 players on the roster and, as such, he will have to behave. Furthermore, unlike last year, he will have to be good at demonstrating an impact every time he is called upon to play the leading role with his peers: clearly, I am referring to the Under 19 championship, which for the other 2006 championships will also be one of the moments key to the season. Everyone knows how much I respect “Lollo” and how high his possibilities are, especially physical, but this cannot and must not be enough: the objectives are high and the stimuli are not lacking, even if undoubtedly the path is complex and will end with being a simple sparring partner is easy.
