A "hot" ladies night coming up to set the tone for much awaited Drawing of Lots

2009/2010 CEV Indesit Champions League

Luxembourg, January 18, 2010. The flurry of matches scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday night will finally determine the starting field for the Playoffs 12 of the 2009/2010 CEV Indesit Champions League. With some kind of an exciting ladies night coming up on Tuesday, all fans are anxiously longing for the Drawing of Lots that is slated for Thursday, January 21, at the CEV premises in Luxembourg. The organization of this year’s finals will be also allotted there and the tension is clearly to be perceived as a bunch of clubs are striving in order to get this real honor. However, as all Volleyball fans are trying to govern their emotions and expectations, actions on court are still coming up with the leadership of the various preliminary Pools being at stake. Watch-out especially for the girls of FenerbahceAcibadem ISTANBUL of Turkey that resumes to the Czech Republic to be the only team walking through the preliminaries with no losses at all.
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Preview

Pool A
In Pool A, RC CANNES of France will host Russian Universitet BELGOROD for the last match of the League Round. In order to attract some more attention on this event, the local Organizing Committee has invited former track & field World Champion Stéphane Diagana to toss the first ball of the match. Born in 1969, Diagana enjoyed a very long career – spreading well over a decade - and his biggest success dates back to 1997 as he notched the gold medal at the Word Championships in Athens over the 400 meters hurdles. Back to the Volleyball competition, RC CANNES currently tops the standings of Pool A, with defending champion Volley BERGAMO in second place and Universitet BELGOROD ranked third and also already qualified for the Playoffs 12. In front of the home fans, RC CANNES will be certainly looking for a victory to back up its bid for organizing the Final Four of this year’s CEV Indesit Champions League. If this event is allotted to the French seaside resort, RC CANNES will be automatically qualified for the finals; otherwise the local heroines will have to continue their campaign through the Playoffs 12. Another update coming from the French riviera, the complete receipts deriving from this match will be conveyed to "Fondation de France" to carry out some relief actions in the Republic of Haiti after the tremendous earthquake that caused endless damages and casualties there in the Caribbean area.
The defending champions of Volley BERGAMO will have their last match on schedule against ZOK RIJEKA of Croatia. After a pretty long break, setter Eleonora Lo Bianco will be probably ready to re-join her mates on Tuesday night. Coach Lorenzo Micelli is definitely happy: “Probably Eleonora Lo Bianco will play against RIJEKA and all my players are in good shape. I hope that Ortolani and Del Core will set the tone for a great match. In Croatia we displayed some good Volleyball, but also the team of coach Lovrinov played a spectacular match, so we’re ready for a good remake”.

Pool B
In Pool B, VakifGunesTTelekom ISTANBUL of Turkey will play ASPTT MULHOUSE of France to round out its campaign in the group phase. Even though they suffered quite a major upset last week in Italy against Scavolini PESARO, the Turks are still leading the standings of their Pool with 9 points, whereas MULHOUSE is currently ranked fourth having lost all of its five matches so far. The Italian-born coach of VakifGunes, Giovanni Guidetti, states that his goal is to finish off the group phase maintaining the leadership in Pool B and adds: “We played a tough game in Italy last week. Although we lost there in the tie-break against a very strong opponent, we still preserved our leadership in the Pool. Now all of our efforts are concentrated on the game against ASPTT MULHOUSE”.
In that same Pool Enion Energia DABROWA GORNICZA of Poland – that debuted this year in the European Cups – quite unexpectedly is already qualified for the next round even with the last leg still to go. The Poles, who basically wanted to use this campaign as a chance to gain more international experience, totally dominated the deciding match against ASPTT MULHOUSE with a flawless performance especially in reception and in the serving area. On Tuesday night they will play a very tough game against star-studded team Scavolini PESARO of Italy, whose roster includes also Polish heroine Katarzyna Skowronska-Dolata. In their first match-up in Italy, the Poles stayed tuned only for a while before the Italians totally dominated the scene. This time DABROWA GORNICZA will play in front of a full house; middle blocker Katarzyna Gajgal will have some additional motivation since she could not test out her skills in Italy as she was injured at that time. Having secured also the last match in the national league, both the players and the local fans are in a good mood. “We had two difficult away games in Turkey and France, the girls are pretty fatigued but our fans want to see some good Volleyball and the girls for sure will try to perform at their best” says coach Waldemar Kawka. The Italians will be certainly trying to push it hard, since with an eventual victory against DABROWA GORNICZA they would finish the League Round at the top of the standings of Pool B.

Pool C
Pool C will come to an end on Tuesday afternoon with the Czechs of Modranska PROSTEJOV hosting leader FenerbahceAcibadem ISTANBUL of Turkey. With the standings being already well defined, there is not much at stake, but still the match will be very interesting to watch. The Czechs qualified for the Playoffs 12 this past week with their dazzling victory in Poland against Aluprof BIELSKO-BIALA whereas the Turks still have a clean record with five wins in a row. “We can play calmly with Fenerbahce as we have already qualified for the Playoffs. It is one of the strongest teams in the CEV Indesit Champions League and we can only make a surprise. We will try it out, because winning a set would be a great success for us“, said Mr. Miroslav Čada, head coach of PROSTEJOV.
For the sixth and last round of the Group Phase Dinamo MOSCOW will host at the “Druzhba” competition hall the Poles of Aluprof BIELSKO-BIALA. The standings of Pool C are basically clear, with Dinamo finishing in second place and the Polish team out of the Playoffs 12. However, the previous game in Poland was very hard and Dinamo could eventually prevail only at the tie-break. Russian official Leonid Zayko told that Dinamo need to win only one set to take the second place but the girls are fully focused and ready to score the game.

Pool D
Asystel NOVARA will try to finish its campaign in the League Round with a solid performance against Zarechie ODINTSOVO. The Italians already defeated their next opponents in Russia this past December at the tie-break and will have to test the likes of Brazilian star Paula Pequeno, who stood out as MVP as the Beijing Olympics. With two victories in a row against Metal GALATI and Bank BPS Fakro MUSZYNIANKA, the Russians recovered from a weak start in the CICL (3 losses in the first 3 matches). Asystel leads the standings in Pool D and will try to maintain that position. Coach Luciano Pedullà states: “We will use the game against ODINTSOVO to try out some different solutions because right now our new setter Kim Staelens needs to get acquainted with her mates and our back-up players will also have the chance to get into the rhythm of the competition”. Apart from the above mentioned Paula Pequeno, the Russian team counts on a few additional stars, such as Walewska de Oliveira, Olga Fateeva, young talented setter Maria Zhadan and amazing spiker Tatiana Kosheleva. “We have all the intentions to play a good game against a strong opponent – adds Pedullà – because we want to honor the Champions League and also because it wouldn’t be fair with the other teams of our pool if we do not give our best to get the victory”. Asystel NOVARA is coming out from a 3:1 victory against Piacenza in the Italian league and will try to notch a fifth victory in out of six games. Captain Paola Paggi says: “We want to win, of course, that is the name of the game! But we will be happy to play a game with no stress about the eventual impact of a loss. Maybe this way we will be able to fully express our potential”.
Bank BPS Fakro MUSZYNIANKA of Poland, after some great victories before the Christmas break, lost two matches in a row, first in Italy with Asystel and more recently in Russia against Zarechie ODINTSOVO. In their last game of the preliminaries the Poles will try to beat Romanian champion Metal GALATI, a team that features the main setter of the Polish national team, i.e. Milena Sadurek-Mikolajczyk. The financial situation of the Romanian club is currently pretty tough. Some players are not being regularly paid and as a result of such troubles Olga Tocko, Mira Golubovic and Jelena Alajbeg refused to play against Asystel last Wednesday. Polish coach Bogdan Serwinski says: “We cannot rely on their own problems. We have to focus on our game which is not at the top level right now. We will do our best to win this match against the Romanian team but first of all we have to find back our good rhythm”.