On the eve of the fourth day of the group stage of the 5th Place Play Offs, coach Radostin Stoytchev spoke at the conference, presenting the challenge that his WithU Verona team will face tomorrow at 19.00 at the Pala AGSM AIM against Vero Volley Monza.
These are the words of the Verona coach: “In this phase of the championship, especially with the current formula, every match changes the situation in the standings. The Monza team is one of the three that has the possibility of changing the sextet. They have Grozer and Szwarc as opposites, Beretta and Di Martino in the center and many other players who are good at putting their opponents in difficulty. We had a few days to prepare for the game, but that’s no excuse, we’ll have to be good at interpreting it. Lack of alternatives? If we had had Perrin with Civitanova, the series could have ended differently because an experienced player shifts the balance. The players on our bench are very young, see Bonisoli who is 18 years old. It’s obvious that when you have trained players it’s different, in the future we will try to strengthen our team with players who have more experience.”
Then coach Stoytchev continued, speaking of the moments of push-ups he had in Perugia: “What happened is not strange. When the team across the net plays so well and hits so hard, the gap of 4/5 points that is created is difficult to recover. Perugia took away the possibility of managing some situations well with many break phases that did not allow us to play on equal terms. We won a lot of tiebreakers this year. It’s true that Civitanova missed him, but absolutely not with the other top tier teams. We often managed to recover, winning the fifth set. At the moment we still sin of inexperience and emotionality, because an expert player knows how to manage the point and how to communicate with his teammate. The mistake is part of the growth especially if we talk about such young guys, next year we will see clear progress “.
Later, the coach spoke of the current championship formula: “I understand Perugia’s disappointment, but the formula has been this for many years. It has often happened to me in the past with Trento that we were first in the standings and then in the end we lost. It has to be accepted and that’s it. Many changes on the bench next season? I respect other companies and colleagues very much; in this regard I would like to explain my position. I ask myself some questions, in a championship like this how many clubs are not happy with the result? Perugia and Modena certainly aren’t, Civitanova wasn’t until a few weeks ago. In the end, 5/6 coaches have to be changed, this means that someone doesn’t evaluate the championship well. Everyone hopes to win, but a staff and a coach must be evaluated on the basis of their characteristics and their work. This is true in volleyball, as in other sports”.