The mid-week round of the 2021/22 Italian Men’s Volleyball Championship brought a lot of excitement and a couple of upsets.
The biggest upset of Round 4 of the 2021/22 SuperLega Credem Banca was the away victory of Kioene Padova over Itas Trentino, which were invincible until now and which downed titleholders Cucine Lube Civitanova in the previous round, with a score of 3-2. Well, maybe, looking at the charts, the triumph of the team commanded by Jacopo Cuttini is not such an upset because now, it has the same win-loss ratio as Trentino (3-1). What might worry Trentino staff more than a defeat is the injury of Alessandro Micchieletto. The rising star of Italian and world volleyball injured his ankle in the second set and remained on the bench for the remainder of the encounter. Mattia Bottolo and German Linus Weber led Padova to the success with 24 and 22 points, respectively. Marco Vitteli set up five blocks.
Cucine Lube Civitanova ended their own losing streak of three matches (including all competitions) as they swept Verona Volley at home 3-0 (25-22, 25-20, 25-20) even though they once again played without Juantorena and Kovář, as well as without Zaytsev (since the start of the season). Cuban Marlon Yant was the best scorer in Lube with 15 points.
Leo Shoes PerkinElmer Modena don’t play according to the expectations which were created based on the number of international stars the club signed in the off-season. Modena suffered their second loss in three games – 1-3 to Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza for which the Turkish Adis Lagumdžija scored 25 points, Francesco Recine served five aces, and American Maxwell Holt made four blocks. However, this failure should not be considered tragic by Modena’s fans given it happened against the team that has been playing on the highest level since the inception of the season and is one of the two clubs with a perfect record (4-0).
The other side with the perfect record (3-0) is Sir Safety Conad Perugia, which prevailed over Gioiella Prisma Taranto 3-1 (25-19, 23-25, 25-16, 25-17). Luxembourger Kamil Rychlicki and Cuban-Polish Wilfredo León tallied 15 points apiece for the ‘Block Devils’.
2021/22 SuperLega Credem Banca – regular season, Round 4:
