Superlega Volleyball, Emma Villas Siena challenges Taranto at PalaEstra
It is the eve of the match between Emma Villas Aubay Siena and Gioiella Prisma Taranto. The match, which will start tomorrow evening at PalaEstra at 20.30, is valid for the ninth day of the Superlega championship and will be broadcast live on RaiSport.
At the moment it is a direct clash in the fight for salvation: Siena is twelfth with 3 points in the standings (those won in the success in Cisterna), Taranto is just one place higher, in eleventh place with 6 points. The Sienese, however, have to make up for two games that they didn’t have the opportunity to play: in Padua they will be engaged on December 8 (at 5 pm live on RaiSport) while in Civitanova Marche the match against the Italian champions of Lube will be played Wednesday 21 December at the Eurosuole Forum starting at 20.30.
After last Sunday’s forced stop in Civitanova Marche (match not played due to the positivity of more than three Lube players to Covid) Emma Villas Aubay Siena returns to PalaEstra for a very important match. The exes in this match are from Taranto the setter Falaschi and the opposite Lucconi (both in Siena in the 2019-2020 season, the one stopped in March 2020 and a few days from the end of the regular season due to Covid, with Siena at that moment she was first in the standings in the A2 tournament); on the Sienese side, however, the libero Pochini wore the rossoblu colors in the 2021-2022 season, that is to say in the last sporting year.
The calendar for the ninth day includes the challenges between Trento and Milan and then Modena-Verona, Piacenza-Lube Civitanova Marche, Cisterna-Perugia and Padua-Monza.
Taranto was promoted to the Superlega in 2021 and reached salvation last year with an ever-growing path; great merits go to coach Vincenzo Di Pinto (who boasts 5 promotions from A2 to A1 in his curriculum) in his twenty-sixth season in Serie A. The diagonal is all Tuscan: opposite to the setter Falaschi (who won the Scudetto in Civitanova in 2021 ) there is the bomber, young promise, Stefani; in the center, in addition to the expert (12 seasons in A1) Alletti, the young Gargiulo and Larizza alternate (Lube school where he won the Scudetto in 2021); guarantee in place 4 comes from the Canadian Loeppky (already with experience in the Italian championship in Ravenna and Padua) and the Italian expert Antonov; in the second line is the free Rizzo.
There are two precedents between the two teams, it manifests itself in the 2020-2021 season (A2 championship): in Siena the Apulians won by three sets to zero (with the former Williams Padura Diaz who scored 15 points). Upon their return, in March 2021, Siena redeemed themselves by winning away by three sets to one and with 30 points from Yuri Romanò.
This is the last match of the month of November for Emma Villas Aubay Siena, which will then experience a December full of commitments with 6 official matches scheduled.
“It’s a match that can give us the chance to win for the first time in this league in front of our fans here in Siena. It’s an important match. If we face it as the mother of all games and as if it were the World Cup final, we put on ourselves further pressure that we don’t need right now. It’s an important race and we want to win it.” Word of the coach of Emma Villas Aubay Siena, Paolo Montagnani, who presents the match against Gioiella Prisma Taranto.
Montagnani again: “We lived through a period that was a sort of show jumping. We won in Cisterna, then we had Covid, then we got back on track for the match against Modena. After that match we got ready for the match against Lube but we didn’t play in Civitanova Marche and we even came back from Civitanova with food poisoning which affected many players. We got back on track in a few days and will be ready for the match against Taranto. We are certainly living in a period in which there has been little continuity”.
And on the Apulian team: “It’s a team that outnumbers us in attack, it has percentages that are higher than ours. But they too have flaws, it will be up to us to try to get them out as much as possible with the aim of improving things on our side of the pitch”.
The cost of tickets to attend the match will in this case be lower than in the previous home games played by Siena against Perugia, Piacenza and Modena. In fact, the ticket for the first ring will cost 20 euros, while the reduced ticket will cost 15 euros. The ticket for the second ring will cost 10 euros, if reduced 5 euros. The baby park service will be included in the price with entertainment by professional entertainers for all the children who will be present at the PalaEstra. The categories for which the reduction is applied are: students, children aged 12 to 18 and Fipav members. Under 12s enter PalaEstra for free, but must first collect a Junior ticket (with presale for 2 euros through the Ciao Tickets platform or at no cost at the PalaEstra ticket office).
Tickets are on sale on the Ciao Tickets platform, the PalaEstra ticket office will be open today, Saturday 26 November, from 16 to 19 and Sunday 27 November, the day of the match against Taranto, from 10 to 13 and from 18.30 on.