Cremona, Italy, March 28, 2017.  The stage was set for a classic Italian derby, at a European level, and it did not disappoint.  What Pomi CASALMAGGIORE achieved last season will never be forgotten, but in truth their performance tonight did not live up to expectations.  Partly to do with the dominance of the travelling team from BUSTO ARSIZIO who won all three sets (25-22, 25-20, 29-27) and have their sights fixed on a place in the Final next month.

The home team actually started the brighter, and even had a considerable lead during the first set before letting the away team back into it and succumbing to them at the tail end by three points.

The second set was dominated by the away side, and despite Pomi trying all that they could, they again fell short this time 25-20.

The third, and what turned out to be final, set was a different story all together.  This time it was the home team, cheered on by their attending 2,917 fans, who fought back.  In the end the set could have gone either way and there was exciting conclusion to the match with a red card proving important as it finished 29-27.

Top scorer was Valentina Diouf with 17 points, followed by Brayelin Martinez with 14 and Lucia Bosetti with 12.

Gianni Caprara, head coach of Pomi CASALMAGGIORE, said:  “The winning part of this match was the attack, and the one of BUSTO ARSIZIO had a much lower level of mistakes than ours. With such a percentage of mistakes it is impossible to get through and win unless you get 20 aces and this is something very unlikely to happen.”

Marco Mencarelli, head coach of Unet Yamamay BUSTO ARSIZIO said: “Today we could manage to play very much similar to what we did in Novara by playing great attention to strategy and tactics and even more fluency.  I am very much satisfied because I think we still have margin for improving our game schemes. We had some more troubles when receiving but it is part of our profile.”

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