European cups
Treviso in CEV Cup and Macerata in Challenge Cup for the semi-finals.
Extremely important week in Europe for Treviso and Macerata. Tomorrow, Wednesday, they will play their respective semi-finals of Cev Cup and Challenge cup and the return games will be played this weekend.
Treviso travels to Poland to meet Rzeszow, where there is Ljubomir Travica, Matej Cernic and Michele Baranowicz. The Polish are currently second in their national league.
Dante Boninfante (Sisley Treviso): “Crucial game for us. We did some good things on Sunday against Verona and now we want to keep playing this way. The Cev cup is one of our targets this season, we want to try to go all the way. We know this is a tough place to go to, they will do everything to win it given that the return game is in Italy. We’ll stay concentrated and focused on playing our game”.
Macerata flies over to Greece to face E.A.Patron Lux for the semi-final first leg of the Challenge Cup. Berruto’s team travelled without Romain Vadeleux, who suffered contusion on his right thumb. Macerata will look for its ninth consecutive win in Europe to have a good advantage coming into the return leg in Italy on Sunday and have a good chance to qualify for the final.
Dragan Stankovic (Lube Banca Marche Macerata): “If Patras got this far, this means it is an excellent team, like all the Greek teams are. Besides the technical aspect of the game, I think this will be a real battle, in a heated and packed gym. It’s always very hard to win in Greece, we saw that a few months ago when we played in Lamia. Still, we have what it takes to do it, it will be important to impose our game right from the start, without being influenced too much by the electric atmosphere we’ll probably find. We really want to do well in this competition, we are close to the final now and we certainly don’t want to let it slip away”.
CEV CUP
Semi-final first leg
Wednesday 23 February at 8.30pm
Asseco Resovia Rzeszow (POL) – Sisley Treviso (ITA)
(Schiemenz- Loderus)
GM CAPITAL CHALLENGE CUP
Semi-final first leg
Wednesday 23 February at 6pm (7pm Italian time)
E.A. Patron Lux (GRE) – Lube Banca Marche Macerata (ITA)
(Kolarevic- Nastase)
Fixtures
CEV Cup
Semi-final return leg
Saturday 26 February at 8.30pm
Sisley Treviso (ITA) – Asseco Resovia Rzeszow (POL)
(Mokry-Azevedo)
GM Capital Challenge Cup
Semi-final return leg
Sunday 27 February at 6pm
Lube Banca Marche Macerata (ITA) – E.A. Patron Lux (GRE)
Serie A2 Sustenium
Round 24, last midweek round.
In the last midweek round of the regular season, the leaders Padova, with a six-point advantage on Ravenna, will host Santa Croce in a remake of the Italian Cup semi-final won by the team from Tuscany at the tie-break. Ravenna meets its cup semi-final opponent too, Sora, which is sixth in the table. In mid table, Milan takes on Isernia, which will try to leapfrog Gela, which plays host to club Italia. Still last from bottom and 6 points from the 14th position, Pineto entertains Loreto, which is coming off a nice home win over Mantova. Three important points at stake between Perugia, third from bottom, and Reggio Emilia, ninth and fighting for a good position in the playoffs. Showtime guaranteed between Città di Castello, fourth, and Genova, fifth, as the two teams are separated only by a point. The round will end on March 2 with Mantova versus Segrate.
Round 24
Wednesday 23 February at 8.30pm
CheBanca! Milano – Geotec Isernia
(Prati-Contini)
Marcegaglia CMC Ravenna – Globo Banca Popolare del Frusinate Sora
(Zingoni-Piana)
Pallavolo Pineto – Energy Resources Carilo Loreto
(Orpianesi-Valeriani)
Phyto Performance Padova – NGM Mobile Santa Croce
(Zanussi-Guerzoni)
Gherardi SVI Città Di Castello – Carige Genova
(Falzoni-Luciani)
Sir Safety Perugia – Edilesse Conad Reggio Emilia
(Venturi-Costantini)
Eurogroup Gela – Club Italia A.M. Roma
(Pozzi-Parlato)
Wednesday 2 March at 8.30pm
Canadiens Mantova – Volley Segrate 1978
