Italy - Superlega 2021-2022

    ^Had amazing game against league's newcomers (Taranto) with MVP award and weak game against Trentino, not that much to talk about for now. It looked like overall he may be a leader of his team, but whether they can achieve anything more than 7th/8th spot is a question.


    The most interesting part of first two legs, in terms of a general shape of the league this season, is (IMHO) Trentino playing a game against Douglas Souza's Vibo Valentia in a system of three OHs (Lavia-Michieletto-Kaziyski), with Lavia playing as a nominal opposite with all OHs taking a fair share of duties in spiking from a 2nd/1st zone. It will be really interesting if they improve within this system or whether it was just an experiment of Lorenzetti, they were really weak in terms of 1st zone spiking with this lineup, but maybe they need all some more training. It's a logical choice considering that's a waste to have Lavia or Kaziyski on a bench, with Pinali not being that good of an opposite to make such sacrifice, but there was a moment when they struggled against Vibo Valentia due to this system.


    All top teams seem to have some issues, so the next weekend's SuperCup mini-tournament with four-best teams of last season (Civitanova-Monza and Perugia-Trentino) can be interesting.

    Quote from Umu11

    Have you guys watched the semifinals? How was the matches? I see Monza won 3-1 against Lube and Trentino 3-0 vs Perugia.

    I wish I did, but I couldn't find any links :( But looking at the stats, it seems like Sbertoli is doing a great job replacing Giannelli in Trento. Every player reached double digits in just 3 sets!

    Quote from saishuu

    I wish I did, but I couldn't find any links :( But looking at the stats, it seems like Sbertoli is doing a great job replacing Giannelli in Trento. Every player reached double digits in just 3 sets!

    yes, I have seen some parts of the game on social media and Trentino looked good but I shouldn’t judge a team just based on a certain video. I hope there will be highlights. I am curious of Trentino. Despite having budget cut, they still are a dangerous team. It was as if they were reflected that they were not going to have flashy names in the team yet after ECH, I think they do have flashy names lol I believe Kaziyski also a good player to be in this young team as a

    more experienced player.

    Quote from Umu11

    yes, I have seen some parts of the game on social media and Trentino looked good but I shouldn’t judge a team just based on a certain video. I hope there will be highlights. I am curious of Trentino. Despite having budget cut, they still are a dangerous team. It was as if they were reflected that they were not going to have flashy names in the team yet after ECH, I think they do have flashy names lol I believe Kaziyski also a good player to be in this young team as a

    more experienced player.

    Yeah, the addition of Kaziyski plus the youngsters coming from a successful NT season helped them a lot. I wonder how long the experiment of using Lavia as OPP will work though...

    Quote from Umu11

    Have you guys watched the semifinals? How was the matches? I see Monza won 3-1 against Lube and Trentino 3-0 vs Perugia.

    Monza played really great, as they did against Modena in a 1st leg: Grozer is in a fine shape as for now (let's wait for how long he'll be healthy), Davyskiba is an early revelation of the season, Dzavoronok is very fine player as well, Orduna is experienced and creative setter and these middles (Galassi, Grozdanov) are both really talented, and in a near future they can develop into top European MBs IMHO. Federici (libero) was also considered to be a huge talent as a junior, and even though he didn't play that well last season, he was great yesterday against Civitanova: long story short, Monza played all-around game with every player contributing and deservedly defeated Civitanova. Civitanova, that seems to be out of shape as for now: they definitely miss Zaytsev because Gabi ain't good enough to play as a starter in such team as for now, suprisingly they struggle a lot in reception despite replacing Leal with Lucarelli, and De Cecco-Simon-Juantorena core plays okay-ish, but that's not enough. They were defeated in a league by Piacenza earlier and these loses are very representative of their actual level.


    Trentino played fantastic game to be honest: their only weakness as for now in this 3 OHs lineups is an attack from zone 1, but due to Sbertoli's creativity and tendency to exploit his middles as much as it's possible, their game is still pretty unpredictable for opponents. Lavia plays as a fake OPP, because throughout a game in different positions, I counted that and on 12 different positions (P1-P6 and positions with their serve), they all were attempting to spike from 2nd/1st zone the same number of times (4). Sbertoli is one of the best young setters in the world (and only partially due to the fact that he has almost no competition), so it's not a suprise that he has started this season playing really well. Perugia, on the other hand, as much as Civitanova and Modena, has struggled a lot so far: Rychlicki has been awful, Giannelli was good in first two games, but was non-factor yesterday, and even Leon hasn't played on his normal level at the beginning of a season. Anderson was great in friendlies and against Verona and Cisterna, but yesterday was average, even when he was switched to OPP position in a 3rd set. There's a lot to work on from Grbic's perspective.


    The final today will be really interesting, I think Monza can challenge this Trentino's system more than Perugia (and Vibo Valentia last week), because their service game as for now is much more consistent, these positions where Dzavoronok, Davyskiba and Grozer serve were deadly to both Modena and Civitanova, and we may see how much Trentino can cover their lack of a regular 1st zone attack with fast and versatile setting.

    Trentino easily defeated Monza 3-1 (11, 21, -31, 14).

    MVP: Kaziyski

    Stats: https://www.legavolley.it/match/35593


    Not a good game by Monza's current standards: Grozer was playing out of this world in 2nd-3rd sets (20 points in those I think), but every other player didn't play as well as against Civitanova, so it was very one-sided once Grozer got deservedly exhausted.


    Trentino is just sensational at this point of the season, I have no idea how long Kaziyski will play that well, how long they'll be healthy, how long Lavia plays as efficiently as past 3 games in this twisted system, but they look like a complete team with classy player on every position. It's even more impressive considering that besides Kazyski and Zenger they all played in medal phase at the ECH, and then they trained without Michieletto who was absent till the week when the season has started - and yet they're so good while playing within a completely new system and new team. Lisinac had very weak past year by his standards, but he looks like the best MB in the world at the start of this season, even Zenger played really well against Perugia and Monza. Next week they'll play against Civitanova, so we will know whether that's their true self right now, I guess.


    It's too early to say whether they'll be able to compete against big 3 (CIV, PER, MOD) in 6 months from now, but Club World Championship is 6 weeks from now and considering how messy Zaksa has looked so far, they may give themselves another trophy soon.

    Exciting match between Padova and trentino. Did not expect Trentino to waste that opportunity to close out the 5th set. Hoping Michilleto's injury is minor only.

    Damn, this is disastrous season for Vibo Valentia as for now: I thought they may be a dark horse of the competition, but in fact they're 11th in a table, Nishida got injured against Civitanova, Mauricio Borges is awful, Douglas is very mediocre, Flavio is playing fine, but doesn't get enough balls from Saitta. if Baldovin doesn't get fired already, it is only related to the absence of Nishida.


    On the other hand, Mozic is one of the best players of Superliga already as 19yo kid, wow.