On January 17th, in the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia, Ishikawa Yuki's team Power Valley Milano (hereafter "Milan") defeated the previous champions Roubaix Civitanova (hereafter "Roubaix") 3-1 (25-22, 19-25, 25-20, 29-27) to advance to the semifinals! This is the first time that Milan has made it to the top four, including the league. For Ishikawa Yuki personally, this is his first time in seven seasons to advance to the Coppa Italia semifinals since winning the Modena championship in the 2014/15 season.
The Coppa Italia quarter-finals were held with the Omicron strain wreaking havoc even more than in Japan. Home team Roubaix was missing captains Juan Torena and Anzani due to injury, but they had Italian superstar Zaitsev, who returned at the end of last year, as well as Simon, Lucarelli and other fierce players, along with the genius setter De Secco. Meanwhile, Milan took on the champions without missing any of their main players, including Japanese superstar Yuki Ishikawa, Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Patri and Chinenieze.
Milano's blocking and floor defense were outstanding. Against the Roubaix side, who had outstanding offensive power, the opposite Zaitsev was able to attack as he pleased with an attack success rate of 581 TP3T, but he managed to limit the attack success rate of the two players on the outside to about 401 TP3T. Milano had 11 block points (5 of which were from Chinenyedze!), but 9 of those came from the two players on the outside, so they must have been under a lot of stress and pressure. Another reason for their victory was that they continued to target the Cuban Yanto, who is not good at passing, on the serve. Although Milano's serve reception success rate was lower than Roubaix's, they had more service aces than Roubaix.
On the other hand, Roubaix wanted to attack Milan more with their serves. Both teams had 15 serve errors, so Roubaix did not have as many errors as the World Club Championship final. Milan's reception was solid. Milan's strength is its defense, but I think this match was especially solid. The stability of Ishikawa, Jaskier, and the Pesaresi line.
Ishikawa showed such a defensive performance, but his spike success rate was low at 301 TP and 3 T. Instead, it was Jaskier on the opposite side who exploded in this game. He led the team with 18 points from 16 attacks and 2 serves. Even on match point, he made a difficult ball into a back attack in a pressured deuce situation and made it.
The middle players also had high success rates, with Chinenyedze scoring 771 TP3T and Piano scoring 781 TP3T. Setter Porro is also good at using quick kicks. He's 20 years old and has a baby face, so he looks really young, but he has a very cunning personality (lol). Even though he's only 183cm tall, his serves are sharp. Patri also scored two service aces in addition to a spectacular spike from the right.
We won the first set, lost the second, and took the third, making us think, "Oh, maybe we can do this too..." but in the fourth set, Roubaix took the lead. I thought, "If we go to the full set, we'll lose..." but then Milano came back and won 23-19. I thought, "We've already won!" but then in the S1 rotation, Ishikawa was beaten by Lucarelli's serve, and Roubaix was able to catch up at 23-23... It was really nerve-wracking (lol). The S1 rotation at this time was not to have Patri play left and Ishikawa play right, as per the standard, but to have Ishikawa receive the serve in the middle and have the two side players play from their original positions, but Ishikawa's pass in the middle was disrupted and he was unable to participate in the attack well. Coach Piazza reverted to the standard at the last moment and got a side out, and as mentioned above, we won with Jaskier's back attack!!!
This is Milan's first time to reach the top four in both the league and the Coppa Italia. Ishikawa won the Coppa Italia seven years ago when he was with Modena, but at that time he was just a "study abroad student". No, he has become a really strong and wonderful player, and at that time I never imagined he would become such a player.
Seven years ago I was young (laughs). Matteo was young too.
The Coppa Italia final will be held at the Unipol Arena in Bologna in March! Who would have thought that a Japanese player would be standing on the stage where I went to watch two years ago...?
The decisive battle is in Bologna!!!
Photo: Lega Pallavolo Serie A
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