Sir Safety Susa Perugia deservedly triumphed over Cucine Lube Civitanova in the match for the 2022 Italian Men’s Volleyball Super Cup, with a fright caused by a slip by Wilfredo León.
It’s Perugia that raised the 2022 Italian Men’s Volleyball Super Cup (Del Monte® Supercoppa 2022), doing it for the fourth time in their history after 2017, 2019, and 2020. The final verdict arrived after five sets (partial: 20-25, 25-22, 23-25, 25-22, and 15-8), with a shock of 2,500 spectators at PalaPirastu in Cagliari, caused by the fall of León, Perugia’s top scorer in the match.
The Cuban-Polish outside hitter, while landing on the ground after a spike, slipped on a giant sticker, fell back, and hit his head heavily. Moments of fright followed as León remained lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. Fortunately, the intervention of Perugia’s medical staff reassured everyone after a few moments that the star player was all right. He got up and left the pitch with an ice bag on the back of his head. Later, he joined the winning celebration with his teammates as if nothing happened. His team was leading 12-6 in the tie-break at that moment after coming back twice in the match due to Lube’s leads of 1-0 and 2-1 in sets. Lube failed to materialize an 8-3 lead in the fourth set by which they’d avoid a tie-break and would take the title.
León finished the match with 21 points, which is the same number of points earned by Lube’s Puerto Rican-American opposite, Gabriel García ‘Gabi’. Cuban Marlon Yant made a 71% attack (15/21, 3 errors, blocked once). Ivan Zaytsev entered the court only briefly in the last two sets on the losing side.
Perugia’s outside hitter from Ukraine, Oleh Plotnytskyi, received the MVP award.
