Vakifbank
The mentor of the club that claimed the trophy at the end of the 2010/2011 season, Italian-born Giovanni Guidetti, feels somehow relieved that this adventure is finally going to start: “We have been working very hard since mid-August and waiting for the start of this tough competition. Our team has changed a lot since last year and it is a pleasure to work with this group. The players are very motivated and ready to achieve the ambitious goals we have set for this season. Volero is a solid side with many young but talented players. They also have a very good Japanese setter and a strong and experienced spiker, Cuban Nancy Carrillo. It won’t be an easy game but we want to secure a positive result in front of our supporters”.
Team captain Gözde Sonsirma Kirdar adds: “We start the season via this game and we want to show that we are as strong as we were in the past few years. Even though we have added some players to the group, we already feel the right chemistry is there. We do not know much about Volero but we have started our preparations for the game. We will take it step by step and try to finish first in the group. We expect many fans will come to the sports hall to cheer on us”.
Vakifbank – the first club from Turkey able to claim the CEV Volleyball Champions League – was assigned by the DOL to a preliminary group that includes, apart from Volero, also last year’s silver medalists RC CANNES of France and Russia’s Uralochka-NTMK EKATERINBURG.
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