Del Monte® Italian Cup SuperLega Final Four
Captains interviews
It’s time for the Del Monte Italian Cup final four this weekend. Bologna’s Paladozza will be filled again with the colours of fans coming from all over the country and beyond borders.
Emanuele Birarelli (captain Energy T.I. Diatec Trentino): “This will be a difficult match because we always need to be a tour very best to be able to win. We’ll need to find different solutions and resources all the time. For example, against Piacenza in the quarter-finals, our serve did not work as well as it usually does so we had to find a different way. But the victory over Piacenza gave us a lot of positive energy and belief in our ability. We were really close to lose it but once again we’re in the final four and we’ll fight for the title”.
Goran Vujevic (captain Sir Safety Perugia): “The four favourites made it to the final four, these are the four teams that have proved so far to be a notch above the rest in the league. Modena, Macerata and ourselves have dominated our quarter-final while Trento had it a little harder, though they still reached their target. I think there will be two days of top volleyball in Bologna because the best teams will be on court. As far as our semi-final with Trento is concerned, it’s a very tough game. They are strong, despite the fact nobody indicated them among the league favourites at the start, they showed all their quality and more consistency than all the others. Right now, they are really tough to deal with, but we know we have what it takes to do well. We’ll try our best and try to get at least the result we obtained last year”.
Bruno Bruninho Mossa De Rezende (captain Modena Volley): “This is my first final four in Italy. I am extremely up for it, like all the team. Our win over Ravenna gave us even more confidence, we know we have a lot of qualities. As setter of this team, I am surrendered by top quality spikers, they are our main strength. Like coach Lorenzetti said, we’ll go to Bologna to try to go as far as possible. We have maximum respect for our opponents, but we want to go all the way as we’ll be pushed by our fans who will come along. They will give us that extra motivation”.
Marko Podrascanin (capitano Cucine Lube Banca Marche Treia): “We’ve reached the final four following a good performance in the quarters against Latina. A win that gave us confidence, we’ll go to Bologna to give everything we have in the semi-final against Modena and try to give some more joy to our fans after the cup won last October in Brindisi. The Italian Cup is definitely one of our targets, but we know the road to success will be tough. We’re up against a very strong team in the semi-finals, Modena. We’ll need maximum focus, as well as fighting spirit and determination, we’ll need our best volleyball”.
The referees
Here are the referees picked for the final four.
Referees
Matteo Cipolla (PA)
Fabrizio Pasquali (AP)
Daniele Rapisarda (UD)
Simone Santi (PG)
Luca Sobrero (SV)
Ilaria Vagni (PG)
Video Check
Christian Gianaroli
Matteo Selmi
Scoreboard
Monia Branchesi
Eleonora Colzi
Fixtures:
Del Monte® Italian Cup SuperLega – Final Four
PalaDozza – Bologna
Saturday January 10 at 4pm
1st semi-final
Energy T.I. Diatec Trentino (1) – (4) Sir Safety Perugia Live on Rai Sport 1
Live streaming on www.raisport.rai.it
Saturday January 10 at 6.30pm
2nd semi-finals
Modena Volley (2) – (3) Cucine Lube Banca Marche Treia Live on Rai Sport 1
Live streaming on www.raisport.rai.it
Sunday January 11 at 5pm
Final Del Monte® Italian Cup SuperLega Live on Rai Sport 1
Live streaming on www.raisport.rai.it
The draw
1 Trento 3 | |||
Energy T.I. Diatec Trentino | |||
8 Piacenza 2 | |||
10/1, at 4pm | |||
4 Perugia 3 | |||
Sir Safety Perugia | |||
5 Verona 0 | |||
Del Monte®Italian Cup SuperLega 2014/15 | |||
2 Modena 3 | |||
Modena Volley | |||
7 Ravenna 0 | |||
10/1, at 6.30pm | |||
3 Treia 3 | |||
Cucine Lube Banca Marche Treia | |||
6 Latina 0 |
Serie A2 UnipolSai
Round 13
Two games are postponed to Wednesday 14 due to the players selected in Michele Totire’s under 21 squad. They will play in the World Championships qualifiers from January 9 to 11 in Gentofte, Denmark.
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