Arago de SETE
The players, but actually everyone in Sète, are extremely excited about this adventure and they even posed for the local fans by pointing at the official competition logo displayed on their playing uniforms designed for the 2012/2013 season.
Even though the club has a limited budget in comparison with some of the giants that are starring in this elitist competition, local president René Game has expressed his wish to make it out of the preliminaries and advance to the Playoffs 12. However, this won’t be easy as Arago de SETE will be confronted with some strong teams such as Poland’s Asseco Resovia RZESZOW and Italy’s Bre Banca Lannutti CUNEO. Still Arago significantly strengthened its roster this past summer by contracting Slovak spiker Milan Bencz (206 cm, 24 years of age) who spent the past season in Rome, plus Germany’s rising talent Lukas Bauer and Jean-Philippe Sol, a member of France’s national team. Sol will join forces there with two more members of the national team, and namely Benjamin Toniutti and José Trefle who recently helped France qualify for the final round of the 2013 European Championship.
After playing the European Cups for the past three seasons, this adventure sounds a little tough also for head coach Patrick Duflos. “We were assigned to a very tough group especially since both RZESZOW and CUNEO are targeting the final four. Basically they have already taken the first two spots of the standings even before the start of the season and it is obvious that this arena demands much more energy than the CEV Volleyball Cup we did compete in the past years. Still I want our players to enjoy this opportunity and have some fun”.
Arago de SETE will open its campaign with a home match against Asseco Resovia RZESZOW that is scheduled for this coming October 25. “This participation in the Champions League pays back the hard work of the past years where we finished third, for three times, in the national league” stresses setter and captain Benjamin Toniutti. “Even though we know we are underdogs, we are not afraid of our opponents. We know that RZESZOW and CUNEO belong to the European elite and have got incredible budgets but we want to claim the first match in order to spread some respect among our opponents”.
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