Watch out for a dazzling night to close the curtain before very much awaited Drawing of Lots

2009/2010 CEV Indesit Champions League - Men

Luxembourg, January 20, 2010. So our dear Volleyball fans, time has finally come to close the curtain of a very exciting and thrilling League Round, but the very last words still have to be pronounced tonight, with a total of 12 matches on schedule to finally work out the composition of the Playoffs. Actually, later this evening the names of the teams continuing their campaign will be known, but to have more details about the next round you’ll have to wait for a few more hours, since the Drawing of Lots is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, namely at 3.p.m., at the CEV premises in Luxembourg. So watch out for another dazzling night of play and stay tuned!
All matches will be live streamed at www.laola1.tv; click here for additional info about the upcoming games and provisional standings of the various Pools



Preview

Pool A

Dinamo MOSCOW will definitely have to seize the night against Jihostroj CESKE BUDEJOVICE to qualify for the Playoffs 12. The destiny of Dinamo will however depend also from the game which will take place in Italy between TRENTINO BetClic and Olympiacos PIRAEUS. With the standings being very close in Pool A, even the set or points ratio could make the difference in defining the starting field for the next round. In order to maintain full chances to qualify for the Playoffs, Dinamo will have to score a clear 3:0 tonight against the Czechs. The sixth and last match of the League Round of the CEV Indesit Champions League at the PalaTrento will feature the titleholders of TRENTINO BetClic against Olympiacos PIRAEUS of Greece. Both teams will be striving for a victory to back-up their ambitions to make it to the Playoffs 12. Taking into account the current standings and the set ratio, the Italians would qualify for the next round also with a 3:2 victory. Anyway, both teams are certainly going to play at their best. TRENTINO BetClic will seek its 17th victory in 18 games played so far in the Champions League. The Italians are the current leaders in their national league, with an advantage of five points to runner-up Bre Banca Lannutti CUNEO though they lost this past weekend 1:3 against this team. The guys of Bulgarian coach Radostin Stoytchev will put and end on Wednesday night to a very demanding home calendar. TRENTINO faced over the last couple of weeks Lube Banca Marche MACERATA, CoprAtlantide PIACENZA and Bre Banca Lannutti CUNEO, i.e. the very best Italian teams that are also competing in the European Cups. TRENTINO does not struggle with injuries and can rely on all players, except for the Brazilian middle blocker Riad. “Two sets could be enough for us but, obviously, we do not want to count on anything, because we will face a very tough opponent. That’s why we want to win and gain the top of the standings in Pool A, even if we know that it will not be easy” says Stoytchev.

Pool B

Unicaja ALMERIA will play tonight a crucial match to qualify for the Playoffs 12. The Spaniards need to score a victory against TOURS VB to continue their campaign, so this game will be some kind of a final. Their previous match-up was extremely balanced and ended at the tie-break. After having lost three matches in a row, Unicaja ALMERIA bounced back with a mighty 3:0 against CSKA SOFIA and now a massive support from the local fans will be needed to make it to the Playoffs. Almerian coach Carlos Carreño says: “We will avoid any special calculation about sets or points for this game, we don’t want to speculate at all, we know we have to win and this will be our only aim”.
In Pool B CSKA SOFIA hosts Russian powerhouse Zenit KAZAN. It’s been a while since the volleyball fans in Bulgaria have seen such a famous team live, a team featuring Olympic champions Lloy Ball and Clayton Stanley, well-known Russian national players and the popular coach Vladimir Alekno. Zenit KAZAN travels to Bulgaria as the leader in Pool B and has already qualified for the next round. Vladimir Alekno left at home Lloy Ball, spiker Sergey Tetyukhin and Russia’s libero Alexey Verbov. Local coach Alexander Popov will rely on a new player for the CEV Indesit Champions League. CSKA SOFIA arranged the documents and included in the roster national team middle-blocker Nikolay Nikolov. He has just moved from Lukoil Neftohimik BURGAS to the Reds. Nikolov was treating an injury for almost a year and the match against Zenit KAZAN will be his first for the season. “Nikolay Nikolov is included in the group. We’re glad we have a game which can decide it all. We know we’ll be facing a hard opponent in Zenit. When we visited Kazan, we won only one set. We are eagerly waiting for our opponents, acknowledging their power and brand. We have our chances to go through the next phase of the CEV Indesit Champions League. The good thing is that the players, who were sick in Spain (versus Unicaja ALMERIA) and France (vs. TOURS VB) are now healthy,” said the head coach of CSKA Alexander Popov.

Pool C

Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK plays against Italy’s Lube Banca Marche MACERATA as the Austrians attempt to qualify for the Playoffs. The Tyroleans mathematically need to score one set against the Italians to make it to the next round. This would be the very first time for the Austrians who joined the Champions League for the fourth time in history. The entire Tyrolean region is very excited about this game and the preparations are running at full speed. Local manager Hannes Kronthaler is expecting an even higher number of fans than for the last home match against Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA, where the doors had to be locked 5 minutes prior to the start of the game. Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA and Noliko MAASEIK will try to have their final shot at the Playoffs 12 tonight at the Mediterranean sports center in Montenegro. Noliko scored the previous match-up in Belgium with a 3:1 but has since suffered a couple of losses. BUDVA needs a victory in three straight sets to make it to the next round. Will local star Miloš Ćulafić – so far Best scorer of the League Round - be enough for the Montenegrins to stay alive in the competition? To be continued…

Pool D

PGE Skra BELCHATOW looks for a payback against CAI TERUEL after having lost the very first match of this year’s Champions League campaign against the Spaniards back in early December. The Poles are already sure to qualify for the Playoffs as the first ranked team of Pool D whereas the Spaniards are currently second with the same set ratio of Belgium’s Knack Randstad ROESELARE. The Belgian vice-champion plays at home tonight with the weakest team of the group, Serbian Radnicki KRAGUJEVAC, while CAI TERUEL expects a very hard task in front of over 12’000 enthusiastic Polish fans. “We are very motivated, we believe we can win and qualify for the next round. We won at home 3:2, but we know it will be even harder to beat Skra in Lodz” CAI coach Oscar Novillo Mozos stated. PGE Skra coach Jacek Nawrocki is confident of his team's ability: “We play better and better in every match. We overcame the small crisis we faced at the end of last year and now we feel good. We want to take a revenge for the defeat in Spain”. The match will be special for the Spanish playmaker of the Polish champion, Miguel Angel Falasca. The captain of the Spanish national team will play versus his former team-mates. “Julian Garcia-Torres is my close friend, we know each other very well and very often meet outside the court, with our families. I know how good this middle-blocker is, and how dangerous CAI TERUEL may be. It is a team full of my colleagues from the Spanish national team with a very good setter, Guillermo Hernan. In the national team we cooperate very well as we have different styles of playing. Tonight there will be no cooperation. I know, how desperate CAI TERUEL is to win the promotion to the next round, but I will do my best to stop my friends” said Falasca.
During the press conference that was held right before the start of the season, Belgian head coach Dominique Baeyens identified three main goals for Knack Randstad ROESELARE this season: “Playing the National Cup final, playing the finals in the Playoffs of the national league and qualifying for the second round of the CEV Indesit Champions League”. This last goal comes very close with the match against Radnicki KRAGUJEVAC scheduled for tonight in Belgium. The well-deserved victory against main rival CAI TERUEL of Spain generated a giant leap forward in the direction of the second round for Knack Randstad. Winning is not sufficient for the Belgians because they are still dependent on the result the Spaniards will score in Poland. Coach Baeyens warns and does not want to speculate at all: “Well, first we have to win our match with a clear result. If we perform at the same level as we did in Spain, a good result will follow. There, we dominated the match completely in the last two sets. We do not underestimate the quality of our opponents. Radnicki KRAGUJEVAC looks like the team of ‘just not’ since they lost every set with the smallest difference against BELCHATOW. We will also know the result of the other match before our game starts. Whether this will be an advantage or not will depend from the result of the match itself, I think. But, as I said before, we have to play our best volleyball and then success will follow automatically”.

Pool E

Panathinaikos ATHENS faces this afternoon at the M. Liougkas Hall JASTRZEBSKI Wegiel S.A. of Poland for the last game in Pool E. The Greek team needs only one set to qualify for the Playoffs 12. Both teams have problems in their rosters so the match is going to be tough. The coach of Panathinaikos, Stelios Kazazis said: "This game could be described as a "trap" if someone thinks that we need only one set to qualify for the next round. Our goal is not the set but the victory. The Polish team will play at its best to beat us”. On the other hand, the Italian coach of the Poles, Roberto Santilli, commented: "We came here to give our best. Europe is the motivation. We’ll fight because we want to continue our campaign in the European Cups”.
In that same Pool CoprAtlantide PIACENZA of Italy will face VfB FRIEDRICHSHAFEN at the Palabanca. The match is a mere formality for the German team that is already qualified for the Playoffs 12 and will anyway end the League Round as the leader of this group. The Italian champions are already eliminated from the Champions League, but they will play for a spot in the Challenge Round of the CEV Cup.

Pool F

In Pool F ACH Volley BLED of Slovenia will host at the Tivoli sports hall in Ljubljana Asseco Resovia RZESZOW, the Polish team being the provisional leader in this group having lost only the last game against PARIS Volley of France. ACH Volley BLED lost the previous match-up in Poland with a very slim margin and the expectations are therefore extremely high. Ljubo Travica, head coach of Asseco Resovia, says: “We can’t calculate before this game because it wouldn’t be a professional attitude. We have to fight until the end so I will be encouraging my players to treat this game as another important performance in the CICL. What’s more, this would be for us a good way to prepare for the Polish Cup tournament which we have this coming weekend as we won’t have practices on Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe if we win the set we need I will give some of my players a rest, but for sure it doesn’t mean that we don’t want to win this game. We know that the Slovenians are playing very good at home and that the key for us is a strong, smart service.” Andrej Flajs, ACH Volley’s captain: “The excellent team of Asseco Resovia is coming to Ljubljana and we are well aware this will be the most difficult match in this season. Our defeat and especially our performance in Turkey were disappointing and now we are trying to grasp a win at home and with it the next round of the CICL. This season we have put our trust in the team defense system. And we are not doing any calculation; we simply have to play to win, like we have done in all other matches. I am certain it will be easier for us this time, surrounded by our fans in the always loud Tivoli!”