Quick news: Quick news returns! Club season begins and it's coming hot and thick!

October 20

[21 October]

The return of the quick news series and there will be a new format to the series. Instead of daily updates of the national team and club team season, it will be a weekly recap of the volleyball world on Monday with a special episode of Quick news for interesting news and match ups throughout the week.

After a long national team season, starting from VNL to Continental championship, the club season finally returns. The Italian league continues to be one of the most competitive leagues in volleyball. 

First week of the Italian league, Monza took on Modena 3:1 in the first week of the Italian league. Modena hired a new team this year around with Bruno, and N’gapeth returning to the team and the addition of Leal from Brazil and Nimir from the Netherlands. Monza on the other hand is working with a really matured team with Santiago Orduna and Donovan Džavoronok working in Monza since 2018, Galassi and Filippo Federici since 2019 and Uladzislau Davyskiba since 2020. This Monza team, despite lower expectations of the team overall, due to the maturity and length they have been working with, shocked Modena in a four sets game. Grozer is the best scorer overall, scoring 15 attacks at 20.59% attacking efficiency with 2 blocks and 3 aces Both teams blocked 10 attacks, but Monza was able to score 9 aces versus 2 aces for Modena. Despite the star power with Modena’s wing lineup, Stankovic and Mazzone performed pretty well against Monza, scoring 15 through the middle, especially with Stankovic scoring 4 blocks. In conclusion with the game, Modena is regrouping with their new players. Certainly, credits due to how good Monza did in the match especially with Grozer showing great form.

The second week of the Italian league, Piacenza won against Lube. Lube has been one of the top teams in the league, winning the European Championship league title in 2018 -2019 season and World Club Championship in 2019 -2020. However, Lube suffered a loss against the rising team in the Italian league, Piacenza. The young Piacenza team included rising star Adis Lagumdzija, Olympics champion setter Antoine Brizard, World championship bronze medalist Aaron Russel and recent European champion Francesco Recine. Piacenza was overall the better team that day, with Piacenza able to block 9 attacks over 7 blocks against Lube and serve 9 aces for Piacenza against 6 aces for Lube. The best scorer of the match is Lagumdzija with 35 points, 31 attacks at 52.08% attacking efficiency, with 2 blocks and 2 aces. The next closest performer for either team scored 17 for Lube, Juantorena and 16 points for Piacenza, Rossard. Coming into the new season, there is high expectation for Piacenza and this match definitely shows the class that they are at.

Russia superleague currently at third round, with Zenit Kazan showing great form playing against relatively easier games with Enisey Krasnoyarsk, and Gazprom- Ugra Surgut. Also, they played with ease against Dynamo LO with Jovovic, Ivovoic and Zhigalov in the team. On the news, Lokomotiv Novosibirsk won against Dynamo Moscow, 3 set to 0, despite high expectation for Moscow to take hom the win, Novosibirsk surprised their opponent.

Later this week, Zenit Saint Petersburg vs Dynamo LO for the Russian Super League 4th round, where we will see Russian national team starting setter Igor Kobzar play against Serbian national team starting setter Nikola Jovovic. In this match up, Saint Petersburgs is the favourite because of stronger players overall in the roster. Certainly, Ivovic and Zhigalov are very capable players as well, so this match up might be a closer one for the next round.

The Italian Supercup will be on the 23 and 24 in October for the semifinals and the finals will be held on 25 of October, with Civitanova, Monza, Perugiai along with Trentino to fight it out. The immediate favourite of the series Perugia, with Leon, Sole and the new addition of Matt Anderson, Simone Giannelli and Kamil Rychilicki and coach Grbic, Perugia is looking very strong. At the same time, Lube would come very close to Perugia with experienced players like Poberlandy Simon, Juantorena and Lucarelli and young guns coming through the NCAA system, Gabi Garcia, Lube should be able to give a good fight against Perugia. As for Tretino and Monza, they might have a harder time pushing through the difficult games against those opponents, even though they have great players, such as Michieletto, Lavia and  Kaziyski for Tretino and Grozer, and Džavoronok for Monza.

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