In the 10th match of the second half of the Italian men's volleyball league Serie A, Ishikawa Yuki's Milan (8th place) played away against Roubaix Civitanova (4th place, hereafter Roubaix) on Saturday, March 4th (local time) and lost 0-3 (22-25, 15-25, 12-25).
Although Ishikawa Yuki was on the bench for this match, he did not take part in the warm-up, perhaps to be on the safe side.
Milan was also missing six players due to five players testing positive for COVID-19, meaning they played the match with only seven players in total.
First set starting lineup
Milan
OH: Melgarejo (Cuba), Pesaresi (Italy)
MB: Fusaro (Italy), piano (Italy)
S/OP: Vitelli (Italy), Rosell (Argentina)
L: Colombo (Italy)
Roubaix
OH: Nikolov (Bulgaria), Yant (Cuba)
MB: Sineniese (France), Anzani (Italy)
OP: Zaitsev (Italy)
S: Dececco (Argentina)
L: Barrasso (Italy)
*Positions: OH = outside hitter, MB = middle blocker, OP = opposite, S = setter, L = libero
The stats for this match areHere
Match Report
Milan was missing two setters, two opposites and two outside hitters, so many of the remaining members played in positions other than their natural positions.
In the first set, libero Pesaresi played as the outside hitter, and middle blockers Vitelli and Rosell played as both setter and opposite, forming a so-called two-setter setup.
Melgarejo scored the first point with a spike and Milan got a side out, but Zaitsev then scored one after another with a spike and serve to give Roubaix a 1-5 lead.
However, Milan also got a side out thanks to a spike from Melgarejo, a block from Fusaro, and a mistake from Roubaix, and then Melgarejo scored consecutive points from a serve from Piano to turn the game around to 19-17.
However, with Yount blocking Melgarejo, Roubaix quickly turned the game around to 20-21, and then they also took consecutive breaks from the serve of Garcia (USA), who came on as a substitute. Finally, Anzani's attack was successful, and Roubaix took the first set 22-25.
In the second set, Milan switched the roles of Vitelli and Pesaresi.
Roubaix will continue to use Bottolo (Italy), who replaced Nikolov midway through the first set.
Zaitsev aimed for Vitelli on serve and broke the serve four times in a row, including an ace, to give Roubaix a 0-5 lead.
From there, Milan's Rosell and Vitelli, and Roubaix's Bottolo and Zaitsev, traded side outs and the game progressed to 12-17.
After that, Roubaix broke four times in a row from Yount's serve with a block from Bottolo and an ace of his own, widening the gap with Milano to 12-22.Finally, Piano made a serve error, and Roubaix took the set 15-25.
In the third set, Milan reverted to their formation from the first set.
Nevertheless, Roubaix scored consecutive points from the early stages, mainly from Botto and Zaitsev, to take a large lead of 4-10.
Milan also narrowed the gap to 7-11 with a service ace from Rosell, but Rosell made consecutive mistakes to make it 7-15. Then, Garcia, who came on as a substitute, scored a spike and serve in succession to make it 9-19, and Roubaix extended the lead to 10 points.
In the final stages, Roubaix broke through with a service ace from Bottolo and had a large match point lead of 12-24, but finally Rosell's spike from the right went out, giving Roubaix the set and a 12-25 victory over Milano, 0-3.
MVP: OH Mattia Bottolo (13 points (1 serve, 4 blocks), 62% attack success rate, 57% serve reception success rate).
Milan remains in 8th place with a total of 9 wins, 12 losses and 27 points.
The next match will be against 11th-placed Taranto at home on Sunday, March 12th at 18:00 local time (2:00 Japan time).
This game will be the final game of the regular season.
Thoughts on the match etc.
I think Milan did well given their limited numbers and positional limitations.
I think they did especially well with Rosell, Vitelli and Pesaresi taking turns as two-setters in the absence of a setter (I never thought the day would come where we would see two-setters in Serie A (lol)).
In particular, in the first set, they were helped a lot by Roubaix's mistakes, but Melgarejo was able to score a lot of spikes even though most of the balls were high balls, and Fusaro, who was in the starting lineup for the first time, was excellent with his serves and blocks, and the consecutive breaks from Piano's serves were also amazing.
Diagonally opposite Melgarejo was Pesaresi, who is originally a libero (but is 190cm tall), so there were concerns about a side-out when Melgarejo dropped back, but Rosell, who is originally a middle player, managed to get through it by scoring a spike from the side.
However, after Roubaix replaced Nikolov, who made many mistakes, with Bottolo, the pace was always Roubaix-style.
Also, since we didn't have a professional setter, we lost a lot of points due to missed tosses, and our serve reception was also quite poor.
In particular, libero Colombo, who was in the starting lineup for the first time, was honestly terrible; his serve reception and passing were far from Serie A level (Piano did not even replace Colombo at the end of the third set).
However, even in such circumstances, the Milan players seemed to be having fun.
I think it would have been nearly impossible to win Roubaix with that group of riders, so perhaps that's why they were completely resigned to it and felt no pressure.
The bench joined in the excitement, especially when Fusaro scored an A-quick from Rosell's set, and when Pesaresi, who is normally a libero, scored a spike.
Ishikawa, who was on the bench, also seemed to be smiling a lot more than usual.
I'm not sure if this analogy is appropriate, but it's like watching a weak school facing off against a strong school in student volleyball; you know they're going to lose, but everyone still celebrates the good plays they make despite the hard work.
It's rare that we get to see players behave like this in an official match, so it was an interesting match in many ways, including Rosell Vitelli's two-setter play.
For me, the highlight of the match was Vitelli's one-handed set to right field in the third set (laughs).
I wanted to talk to the players after the game, but it seems they had been told by the team not to answer any questions, so I wasn't able to get any information out of them, including about the condition of Ishikawa's leg.
However, in the match between Piacenza and Cisterna that was being played at the same time, Cisterna defeated Piacenza, the Coppa Italia champions, 3-0, and is now just one point behind Milan, so unless they win the next match against Taranto, it is unclear what will happen to their progress in the playoffs.
Therefore, I hope that all of our starters will be back at least next week and will be able to play in top condition.
Forza Milano!!!
Photo: Author, Lega Pallavolo Serie A
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