Although a little late, on the 12th of this month I went to cover the match between Padova, the team Takahashi Ai plays for, and Verona.
This time, on the day of the match, I will be departing from Warsaw at 7am on Wizz Air and heading to Venice Marco Polo Airport.
This time the plane took off and landed safely on schedule.
From Venice airport take a bus to Padua.
The last time I went to cover the event at this time, I headed straight to Kioene Arena to watch the morning practice, but this time the game was early, at 3:30 p.m., so there was no morning practice, so I headed straight to the center of town.
Still, I had some time before the match, so I met up with a friend who had come to Italy the previous week to watch volleyball and went into a cafe.
We talked about a variety of topics, including the Japanese match that took place the previous week and how I had been watching Padua's practice every day up until the day before.
But there's really no end to the topics (laughs).
I think we entered the cafe around 11:30, but as we were talking about this and that, time passed by quickly and before we knew it, it was 1:30pm.
The venue opens at 2pm, so of course I wanted to get there early, so I headed to Kioene Arena.
When we entered, the lights were still dim and of course the number of people in the audience was still sparse, but the Padua players were already on the court playing around (laughs).
This time, I also had the chance to chat briefly with the Men in Black, who always cheer loudly for the Padua team before the match.
The Men in Black liven up the stadium with their unique chants, such as "Takatakataka!" and "Arigatou! Arigatou!" when Takahashi scores, and "Parapapapapapaasparhu" when Asparhuv scores (in the recent match against Milan, they shouted "Arigatou!" when the opposing player Ishikawa made a mistake (lol)).
Of course, everyone became big fans of Ran Takahashi (laughs).
In particular, Gabriele on the left in the photo is a central figure in Men in Black, cheering in the center during games and always calling out to Takahashi after games.
Takahashi himself said he loves supporting the Men in Black and is looking forward to interacting with the members.
But it's sure to be fun if you cheer them on together!!
By the way, the Men in Black T-shirts that the members are wearing can be purchased from them.
I also bought one as a donation to their activities.
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While this was going on, the opposing team, Verona players, began entering the field.
I have already seen the match at the Verona venue three times, but the press box there is a little far from the court, so this was my first time getting to see the Verona players up close.
Also present among the Verona players was Fujiwara Naoya, a third-year student at Chuo University.
I was one of the players on a short-term assignment for a university project, and I think I had only been with the team for about two weeks at the time.
He still doesn't appear to be calling out to the other players on his own, and it's clear that he is still struggling with communication.
However, when he was working together with his opposite Saposhkov and the other players, encouraging them to do the same training, I was impressed that he was truly participating as a teammate.
By the way, Fujiwara-kun is a classmate of Ai-kun and is also from Kyoto, so they were rivals in high school.
When I think about the fact that Takahashi Ai has been active in Italy not as a trainee but as a player from the start of the season, and even as a central player, I think that's incredibly amazing.
Ai-kun was in top form during practice today as well.
As the match took place shortly after the devastating earthquakes that had occurred in Türkiye and Syria, a moment of silence was observed before the match.
Details about the match are written here:
We lost the match 2-3 in full sets, and the fifth set was also a close call, but considering how we played up until that point, it wouldn't have been surprising if we had lost in straight sets, so I personally think it was amazing that we were able to get the points from that situation.
Also, since this match was the Veneto Derby, many fans from both Padova and Verona flocked to the venue, so I think it was the best Padova match I've seen this season in terms of both content and atmosphere.
Of course, it would have been even better if Padua had won...
After the match ended, Ai ran over to Fujiwara and the two of them talked for a while.
After this, we spoke to Ai-kun and Fujiwara-kun separately.
I hope that Fujiwara will use the remaining time he has to absorb as much as he can from Italian volleyball and Verona volleyball, and come back as a player, not a trainee.
By the way, even though Ai-kun was tired after performing the full set that day, he continued to interact with fans until the very last person.
I think this every time, but it's really amazing.
After this, we left Kioene Arena and went out to eat with our friends again.
We ate pizza and pasta at an Italian restaurant that Ai-kun had also been to, and talked about our impressions of the game and other things.
It was a really fun moment because I don't usually have many opportunities to talk about volleyball in real life like this.
I didn't have a hotel reservation that day, so I took an overnight bus to Bergamo Airport and returned to Warsaw on a morning flight.
This method was cheaper and faster than booking a hotel and returning the next day, so I tried this route this time, but it was quite tough and I didn't get much sleep. I ended up having to sleep a lot after I got home, so I've decided not to use it in the future unless it's absolutely necessary (lol).
Photo: Author
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