Italian SuperLega Credem Banca club Rana Verona has already made the first major human resource announcements of the off-season. Fabio Soli has taken over as head coach and the first new addition to his roster for the 2025-2026 season will be American star setter Micah Christenson with a three-year contract.

Verona have in fact swapped playmakers with Russian powerhouse Zenit Kazan. Konstantin Abaev, who conducted the Italian team last season, returns home to Russia, while 32-year-old Christenson, who worked his magic with Zenit over the past four seasons, arrives in Verona.

With Zenit, Christenson triumphed three times as Russian champions and lifted three national cup and two national super cup trophies. It will not be the first time he competes in the Italian SuperLega. First, he played for Cucine Lube Civitanova from 2015 to 2018, picking up the national title and the national cup in 2017, and then, for the next three seasons, he was with Leo Shoes Modena, celebrating the 2018 national super cup crown. For many years, the 1.98m-tall playmaker has been a key player in the United States national team and collected two Olympic bronze medals (Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Paris 2024) and one FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship bronze in 2018, among many other titles and medals from world-level and continental competitions.

“It is a great honor to wear the Rana Verona jersey,” Christenson told veronavolley.it. “I have carefully followed the team's path in recent years and I am excited to be part of such an ambitious and motivated environment. The project convinced me right away: there is a desire to grow step by step, with concreteness and vision, without wanting to bite off more than one can chew. I can't wait to start this new adventure together with my teammates and the fans, to wear the colors of Verona.”

“Welcoming an international champion like Micah to our team is a privilege for the club and for our fans,” stated Rana Verona president Stefano Fanini. “We are talking about one of the best setters in the world, an athlete with an extraordinary technical and human profile, who has enthusiastically chosen our project for the next three years. It is a very strong signal, not only for our present, but also for what we want to build in the future. His personality, his leadership and his winning mentality will be a point of reference for the entire environment and for his teammates.”

Fabio Soli was hired to lead Rana Verona as a replacement for Bulgarian coach Radostin Stoytchev, who parted ways with the club during the 2024-2025 playoffs and was substituted for by assistant Dario Simoni for the remainder of the season. Soli also signed with Verona for three seasons.

45-year-old Soli’s previous club job was at the helm of Italy’s Itas Trentino Trento, whom he recently led to the 2025 national title. He also guided Trentino to the CEV Champions League continental title and to the silver medals at the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship in 2024. Soli triumphed as a CEV Challenge Cup trophy winner in 2018 as a head coach of Italy’s Bunge Ravenna and in 2008 as a setter of Italy’s Casa Modena. Some 10 years ago, Soli served as an assistant coach of the Italian women’s national team, and as of this season he is at the helm of Slovenia, his second job as a national team head coach, after training Estonia in 2022 and 2023.

“I am proud to have been chosen to lead Rana Verona,” said Soli. “I thank the club, the owners and the management for having shared with me the plans and the objectives that, beyond the ritual words, concern the growth of the entire club and not just the word ‘victory’. I understood that I am in a very ambitious project, you can feel the air. Every time I have come to the Palazzetto I have breathed a huge passion from the fans, not surprisingly the second largest audience in Italy.”

“With great enthusiasm and confidence we welcome Fabio Soli, a balanced, authoritative, winning, young and ambitious coach – characteristics that unite us and through which we want to reach important goals for the club together,” said Fanini. “With Fabio, we aim to improve and build a growth path for a bright future for our project. We would like to dedicate these words to our fantastic fans, because they must be certain that Verona will always face all the competitions with such determination and ambition.”

• Watch the SuperLega on VBTV

SuperLega Credem Banca 2024-2025 all results

Quick links:
SuperLega Credem Banca 2024-2025
VBTV
Volleyball World Facebook
Volleyball World X
Volleyball World Instagram
Volleyball World YouTube
Subscribe to Volleyball World's Newsletter