Lube, Milano, Piacenza and Monza looking to tie quarterfinal series

After an exciting opening leg over the weekend, the SuperLega Credem Banca quarterfinals are set to continue on Wednesday, with the second duels in each of the four best-of-five series all taking place on the same day and time.

Sir Safety Susa Perugia, Itas Trentino, Valsa Group Modena and WithU Verona, who won their weekend matches and started their series ahead, will have the opportunity to increase their advantage at 20:30 local time (19:30 UTC).

· Watch all SuperLega Credem Banca matches live or on demand on VBTV.

With three of the four teams that dropped their first-leg matches over the weekend returning home on Wednesday, Cucine Lube Civitanova are the exception and arguably the team that will have to deal with the most pressure in the second match of their series.

The reigning Italian champions lost a close match to Verona in front of their home fans, falling to their opponents for a second-straight time in the season, and now have to get a result on the road in order to avoid going down 2-0 in the series and being only another defeat away from elimination.

“I don’t think we played too badly in the first match, but we had some issues that were the difference at the end of sets and we need to work on them,” said opposite Gabriel Garcia. “We’re going to Verona with the goal of leveling the series and in order to do that we’ll need to play better than we did in the first match.”

Allianz Milano, who lost to Perugia in straight sets on Saturday, will also try to end the weekend with their series tied. They have a big challenge ahead of them considering Perugia are yet to drop a match in the 2022-2023 SuperLega, having won all of their 23 duels up to now, but rely on the homecourt advantage to hand the league leaders their first upset.

“We had some good moments in the match and I think the keys for us are to enjoy more the fact that we made it to the playoffs and to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities,” reflected middle blocker Matteo Piano. “This could be a really exciting series and I think we have what it takes to make it longer. We’ll be at home now and we’ll certainly have more confidence. Our immediate goal is to secure a win and bring the series back to Milano for match four.”

Reigning Coppa Italia champions Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza were very close to upsetting Modena and starting the series ahead, but the team blew a 5-1 lead in the tie-breaker and ended on the losing side of Sunday’s encounter.

The team’s strong performance, however, makes head coach Massimo Botti believe that with a few minor adjustments, they can tie the series in front of their home fans.

“Unfortunately we got stuck in some situations with our passing and our offence in the tie-breaker,” he commented. “But we knew it wasn’t going to be easy, we played a good game in Modena and I’m sure this series will be very long. For the second match, we need to look to ourselves and understand that we can’t waste as many chances as we did in the first one.”

Vero Volley Monza have to deal with a similar frustration after coming back from a two-set deficit and taking Trentino to the tie-breaker on the road, but eventually falling in five sets. With the team back home on Wednesday, middle blocker Thomas Beretta thinks the confidence earned with the good performance could fuel Monza to challenge Trentino in the second leg of their series.

“We played well in the first match, but in the playoffs what matters is winning, coming close is not enough,” he remarked. “But we showed we can compete and if we manage to maintain the energy level we displayed to come back after losing the first two sets during the entire match, we’ll have a better chance. Trentino are not unbeatable and we need to play better and make fewer mistakes.”

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