On Thursday, December 19th local time, in the fourth match of the UEFA Champions League group stage, Perugia, where Ishikawa Yuki plays and who are in first place in Pool D, will face Saint-Nazaire (France), who are in third place.
In the first set, Perugia gained points with spikes from OP Ventara and OH Ishikawa, and took the lead 25-21 without any trouble. However, in the second and third sets, Saint-Nazaire's strong defense allowed OP Leon and OH Ewart to score well, resulting in a close match. Especially in the second set, Saint-Nazaire had a momentary lead.
Nevertheless, Perugia continued to score points with a variety of attacks that made it difficult to pinpoint a target, as well as service aces from S. Gianelli and blocks from the Argentine middle duo of MB Rosell and MB Sole, and they narrowly beat a dogged Saint-Nazaire, who were trailing 25-23, 25-23, to win 3-0 in sets.
Ishikawa Yuki was in the starting lineup for the first time in three games since the match against Halkbank Ankara (Turkey) in the UEFA Champions League.
In attack, he scored 10 points, second only to OP Ventara, and although he didn't have any direct aces on his serve, he contributed to many breaks. In addition, even though he was heavily targeted by his opponent in serve reception, he maintained a high success rate of 58% without any major collapse. On the other hand, he lost 5 attacks, which was a little too much, and he needs to fix that.
However, it was good that he was able to play in the starting lineup. At the end of this month, there will be an important match, the Coppa Italia quarterfinals, and it will be interesting to see which outside hitter will be selected as a starter.
The MVP was OP Ventara, who scored the most points on the team with 13, but personally I wanted to give it to MB Rosell, who scored 12 points, had 3 blocks, and an ace. It's rare for a middle player to get the MVP award. I think the Argentine middle duo, including MB Sole, showed their presence with their spikes and blocks in this game. They were cool.
And our opponent this time was Saint-Nazaire. Perugia had won the previous away game with a large margin of victory, 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-13), so I thought this time would be the same, but they played some amazing volleyball. Their defense was solid, their serves targeted Ishikawa, and both OH Ewart and OP Leon had very high attack success rates of over 601 TP3T.
In particular, OP Leon was able to convert difficult high balls into points with force, giving Perugia a lot of trouble. He is 20 years old and French. He is the same age as Kai in the Japanese national team. With this feeling, it would not be surprising if he was called up to the senior national team, but Saint-Nazaire is currently 11th in the French league and he himself seems to be a player who is still in and out of form. However, there is no doubt that he has great potential.
Also, in the third set of this match, a player hit the platform on which the referee was standing so hard that it fell over, something that has never happened before. Fortunately, the referee was not injured. Everyone, please be careful when playing volleyball. The referee's platform will fall over.
Perugia has now won all four of their European Champions League group matches, keeping their record of zero lost sets. They are just too strong. Will there be a team that can beat Perugia this season, either in the Italian League or the Champions League? That may be the biggest joy of the season, along with the undefeated women's team, Conegliano.
PERUGIA - SAINT NAZARE
3-0(25-21, 25-23, 25-23)
Perugia
Starting lineup: OH Semeniuk (8), MB Sole (8), S Gianelli (2), OH Ishikawa (10), MB Rosell (12), OP Ventara (13), L Corati
Substitutes: OP Herrera, OH Plotnicki
Saint-Nazaire
Starting line-up: OH Martins (3), MB van der Ent (2), OP Leon (15), OH Ewart (13), MB Spencer (8), S Ivanov (-), L Devez
Substitutes: OH Halle (3), OH Valefanu
MVP: OP Wasim Bentala
13 points (2 of which were blocks), attack efficiency rate 50%
OH Ishikawa Yuki
10 points, attack efficiency rate 26.31%
Detailed match stats here:
https://www-old.cev.eu/Competition-Area/MatchStatistics.aspx?ID=76400&setN=0
Next Round
Italian League
Second half of the season
December 22nd (Sun) 26:00~ vs Padova
Distribution: VBTV (https://subscribe.volleyballworld.com/volleyball-tv1), FOD
Coppa Italia
Quarterfinals
December 30th (Mon) 28:30~ vs Modena
Distribution: VBTV, FOD
European Champions League
Group Match 5
January 16th (Thursday) 26:00 ~ vs. Ceske Budejovice (Czech Republic)
Distribution: EurovolleyTV (https://www.eurovolley.tv/)
Photo: cev.eu
# Ishikawa Yuki Player's # Perugia We sell uniforms.
— TOSHIKI (@toshikit71) December 18, 2024
Only the red Coppa Italia uniform is available.
This is the shirt worn in the Supercoppa final, where Ishikawa was named MVP!
Limited quantity! We will ship the same day after payment, so you can get it in time for Christmas!!
Please order from the form below↓https://t.co/a0LnGlYJqu pic.twitter.com/0nsZR11jM3
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