A few days before the start of the new SuperLega Credem Banca season in Italy, let’s take a look at another one of the top contenders for honours, last season’s silver medallists Cucine Lube Civitanova.
Superlega 2023
With Adis instead of Gabi, Lube aim at reclaiming the throne
Gianlorenzo Blengini’s stellar squad ready to start quest for eighth Italian title
Published 02:38, 18 Oct 2023
Lube’s new squad won the Jesi Volley Cup trophy over the weekend (source: lubevolley.it)
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About a year ago, the 2022-2023 season started relatively well for Lube. They mastered a straight-set win over Valsa Group Modena’s stellar line-up to qualify for the Supercoppa Italiana final, where they met another star-studded squad, that of Sir Safety Susa Perugia, and lost only after a five-set battle. The team from Civitanova finished the SuperLega regular season in fourth place on a 13-9 win-loss record. In the best-of-five quarterfinal playoffs, they came back from a two-game deficit against WithU Verona to win the series and advance to the semis. Lube survived another five-match series against Allianz Milan, the team that had stunned undefeated regular season winners Sir in the quarterfinals, to face Itas Trentino Trento in the final. That series was also pushed to a fifth-match decider in Trento, which the hosts won to dethrone the three-time back-to-back champions and force them to settle with silver.
The only major international star that left the team between seasons was Puerto Rican opposite Gabriel Garcia, who transferred to Pallavolo Padova Padua for the upcoming season. The list of departures also included four Italian players: Daniele Sottile, Francesco D’Amico, Mattia Gottardo and Ionut Ambrose.
Gabi was replaced by 2.11m-tall 34-year-old Turkish scoring machine Adis Lagumdzija, who arrived from Modena. The Lube squad was enforced by one more foreign addition, 23-year-old Norwegian setter Jakob Solgaard Thelle. The 1.98m-tall playmaker came straight out of college, after competing for University of Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors Honolulu and winning two American collegiate titles over the past five seasons.
Three Italians – 25-year-old middle blocker Jacopo Larizza, 24-year-old opposite Matheus Motzo and 21-year-old libero Francesco Bisotto – also joined Lube’s roster for the new season.
Head coach Gianlorenzo Blengini will continue to rely on the services of established international stars like Argentinean setter Luciano De Cecco, Italian opposite Ivan Zaytsev, French middle blocker Barthelemy Chinenyeze, Italian middles Simone Anzani and Enrico Diamantini, and Italian libero Fabio Balaso, in combination with rising stars in the outside hitter position like Italy’s Mattia Botolo, Cuba’s Marlon Yant and Bulgaria’s Aleksandar Nikolov.
“I think we are going to be a great team. Lube is a team with history, a team with a lot of good players...” 19-year-old Aleks Nikolov told Volleyball World. “I hope we get the chance to fight for the gold medal again, like we did last season. I am optimistic towards the new club season, for sure.”
Lube’s fabulous showcase features as many as seven national titles, seven national cups and four national super cups, all collected during the current century. In addition, they won one gold and three silvers at the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championships, two golds, one silver and three bronzes in the CEV Champions League, and another four lower-tier European Cup trophies.
Just days ago, in their last pre-season matches, Lube won the Jesi Volley Cup, a four-team international friendly tournament, defeating Greece’s Olympiacos Piraues in the semifinals and Italy’s Rana Verona in the final. Ivan Zaytsev was named tournament MVP.
“Many internationals have just joined the group, but the connection between my players doesn't worry me in the slightest,” coach Blengini told lubevolley.it. “We are talking about excellent athletes who will find the right chemistry among themselves, old and new. I am more focused on the need to create a system suitable for the new roster to give the team a distinctive and different appearance compared to last year.”
Cucine Lube Civitanova’s campaign for reclaiming the SuperLega throne starts on Sunday, October 22, with a home fixture against Vero Volley Monza, starting at 18:00 local time (16:00 UTC). On October 29, they will visit Pallavolo Padova for their second-leg game. The team will then travel to Biella for the Supercoppa Italiana event, where they will face Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza in one of the semifinals on October 31, at 20:30 (19:30).
