Four titles in a year: scudettoItalian cup, Italian super cup and Champions League. Since 2016 there is a team that domina the women’s volleyball in Italia e in Europa. And the Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano who, despite the fact that their opponents have strengthened, have shown that they are still the team to beat. Sunday 5 May Monica De Gennarolibero of the national team, and her teammates lifted the last trophy, the most coveted, in the final played in Antalya againstAllianz Vero Volley Milano Of Paola Egonu e Miriam Sylla. A beautiful, but bitter victory for the farewell to the stadiums of Robin De Kruijf, who has been with the Venetian team for eight years, and the departures of other players who have left their mark. “A season like this is unlikely to happen repeatable”, dice a ilfattoquotidiano.it Piero Maschioco-president together with Pietro Garbellotto and sporting director of the Venetian club that has dominated the Italian championship and European tournaments since 2016.
This season’s successes are not to be taken for granted. In the last one, the team led by the Polish setter Joanna Wolosz had been eliminated from the Champions League, losing the chance to play at Super Finals of Turin and that of qualifying for the Club World Cup. “The girls were done for the year in energy reserve”, recalls the sporting director. Then, last summer, observing the volleyball market, Maschio feared: “The other teams had strengthened. Our athletes started the season slowly and gradually grew awareness of theirs possibility”. Dragged by the Swedish opposite Isabelle Hook and by the American spiker Kelsey Robinson-Cook, they reached the championship finals against Savino del Bene Scandicciwhere the new blue star plays, Ekaterina Antropova. The challenge seemed very tough: “We lost game 1 at home in the tie-break. It was our second defeat of the season and for many Imoco was over. Then we won game 2 away, again by tie-break. Was very difficult, but the girls didn’t bandage their heads.” So they went on to win game 3 and game 4, taking home the sixth championship consecutiveil seventh in total.
Read Also
Atalanta in the Europa League final: the Goddess in Olympus is the crowning achievement of the Percassi-Gasperini management
Imoco Conegliano is a born company from nothing In the 2012. Before, in the town of Treviso, there had been another team, the Spes Coneglianowhich after a few seasons in the top flight had gone bankrupt: “Piero and I (Garbellotto, ndr) we were among the small sponsors of that team and so I frequented the arena and I liked the environment”. For this reason, once the Spes experience was over, he and Garbellotto decided to found a new women’s volleyball club: “I was only 26 years old. Pietro someone more. As soon as we had the opportunity to dive in, we decided to focus on women’s volleyball, which I am sure will become the second national sportand, behind football and before basketball, because in the last ten years it has had growth that other sports have not had.” The new company buys the stock of a company Parma and brings the A1 series back to Conegliano, or rather, to Trevisoal Palaverdein which teams like the Sisley in volleyball and the Benetton in basketball. “It was the winning choice, we became the team with the highest average number of spectators per matchwith almost 110 thousand seasonal attendances”, he explains Simone Fregonesehead of communications at Imoco (and before that at Sisley and Benetton Treviso).
Read Also
Sports Decree, so now the government wants to put a stop to major events: new limits on candidatures
The first championship arrives in 2015/16 season. Since then, excluding that of the 2016/17 season and the year of Covid (2019/2020), only one team appears on the roll of honor of women’s Legavolley: Imoco, which in the last three seasons has done the triplet (Scudetto, Italian Cup and Italian Super Cup), to which he can add due Cev Champions League. Behind it is a rich company, passed by the budget of 850mila euro from the beginning to around six millions current, thanks to almost 270 sponsor, the main ones linked to the wine and prosecco supply chain. These are the highest figures for a women’s club in Italy, but are lower than those of clubs in Istanbul.
Among the secrets of this team, there is the nucleus made up of three players who have been with the yellow and blue for years: the captain Wolosz, the Dutch central defender De Kruijf and Monica De Gennaro: “At 38 years old she continues to train an hour more every day” , underline from the club. “We lived two cycles. The three of them left from the first – explains Maschio –. At the end of the first, it seemed like our success was going to stop, but then it continued.” The other secret is the coach, Daniele Santarelliwhich in recent years has also been able to win the World with the Serbia in 2022 and then theEuropean with the Türkiye. “Daniele and I had met before he became the coach of Imoco – recalls Maschio -. He was Monica De Gennaro’s boyfriend, but he didn’t work with us. When Davide Mazzanti (former national coach, ndr) came to us, Daniele became his third trainerthen his deputy and, finally, when Mazzanti took the reins of the national team, I chose to bet on him”.
Read Also
Camila Giorgi has disappeared, the mysteries behind her withdrawal
Next year’s team will be a little different: De Kruijf leaves, the lateral spikers will change (Robinson-Cook and Alessia Gennari they will go to the new US championship, Kathryn Plummer in Türkiye). Wolosz, De Gennaro and the Italian power forwards will remain Marina Lubian e Sarah Fahrreinforced by the Brazilian Gabi, the Chinese Zhu Ting and the former captain of the national team Cristina Chirichella. “When we look for players, we don’t just look for strong athletes, but also people with human baggage.” In addition, some young players will arrive from the youth teams, as happened to the second libero, the 19 year old Anna Bardaro: “Our Under-19s have won the last three championships and some players will make the leap to the first team this year,” announces Maschio.
At this point, Imoco Conegliano can be considered one of the strongest clubs in the history of Italian sport? “We are breaking records – concludes the co-president –. In women’s volleyball, however, there are eleven championships Theodora Ravenna and the eight Champions of the Foppapedretti Bergamo. It still takes a little while to become an unforgettable team.”
2024-05-11 07:06:25
#titles #year #unrivaled #dominance #Conegliano #capital #volleyball
