After ruining my afternoon watching my favourite football team, I decided to catch up with the matches of this round.
Not much problem for Milano against Perugia, enjoying once again a nice contribution from Danesi on offence and from Kurtagić with blocking. Hopefully they'll have both Egonu and Pietrini back and from there work in order to be the main contender for Conegliano both in homesoil and abroad. Perugia is slowly getting better, Gardini and Németh led the charge but they're still not there for snatching points against better teams.
Once again I want to praise Firenze and the performance they had. Surely they didn't play against the healthiest Novara, but still they made it competitive for most of the match. Pity that Malual and Nervini lowered their level in the final stage of the game, but they had to readjust to Agrifoglio and not having Davyskiba surely had its influence. For Novara, nice to see Fersino back and how the Alsmeier-Ishikawa duo is working. Nice job from Mims too, she's filling the role quite nicely.
What a tremendous change of pace from UYBA, they're on a roll since the Caprara affair. I don't want to exaggerate, but this is possibly the most important win of all three. Surely you have to take advantage of a better team playing subpar against you, but today they managed to keep it together even when Pinerolo seemed to have gained the upper hand. Boldini better watch Scola for the starting role, good impact from Frosini too. Pinerolo is still not the team it was last season, but it's not like they're drifting away like Roma.
Coming to the giallorosse, I'm starting to believe that such big changes from one year to another and adding an international competition for a quite thin roster weren't the right moves to do. Mirković is miles away from what Bechis was able to do last season and while Orvošová is doing her best, I'm afraid it won't be enough to stay in the top half of the standings. Crucial win for Cuneo, they could've managed the first set much better but from there they regrouped and left very little chances to the visitors. I know that Bjelica hasn't a lot of credit, but she's proving a solid option for a team that it wasn't even supposed to play in this category. Curious to see how Kapralova will develop too, the girl seems an interesting profile.
Talmassons has clearly some problem with the broadcast from the gym, because most of the time seems to be unavailable. On the bright side, the team is more than alive and doing the impossible to make things hot in the bottom half of the standings. They still have to fully adjust mentally to the higher pace of Serie A1, but this is a team for real. Crossing my fingers for Eze too, she seems so promising. It was important for Chieri to bounce back after a bad loss, but they're still struggling a bit too much compared to the expectations.
Struggle seems a word from the past in Bergamo, they basically matched the wins from the entire last season and they're looking good for a playoff apperance. Shocking start, but great recovery with Manfredini showing some goodies. Vallefoglia is unfortunately cementing as Scandicci of the midfield: lots of money and names, but little consistency.
In the big match, I expected so much worse from Scandicci, but overall they handled themselves decently. Managing a roster like that is like playing Tetris, a bit more of consistencty from the OH unit would've come in handy but I don't think the result would've been much different. The duel between Haak and Antropova was great, Gabi is looking closer to her real level and Zhu Ting is still in her break-in fase. Man, if everything works out as planned Conegliano is scary...