Visiting teams gain advantage in first leg of semis

The home court advantage turned out to be no advantage at all in the first leg of the CEV Champions League Volley 2021 women’s semifinals. In both matches, the victory went to the visiting teams, but this in no way means that the two finalists have already been decided ahead of the return games next week.

Although… In the case of A. Carraro Imoco Conegliano, their trip to Verona for the Super Final looks pretty much certain. The reigning club world champions, who have lost only one match (2-3 against Bartoccini Fortinfissi Perugia in the Italian league in December 2019) in all competitions since playing in the May 2019 Champions League Super Final, hammered out a 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-17) away shutout of compatriots Igor Gorgonzola Novara. Although the opponents are the defending trophy holders from 2019, the likelihood that Imoco will fail to take advantage of playing at home in the second leg are really slim.

Imoco have a top-level squad, arguably the best in the world right now, with world-class players in every single one of the seven starting positions. How could coach Daniele Santarelli possibly go wrong in the side-out phase of the game, when he has an opposite of Paola Egonu’s calibre receiving spiking opportunities from a setter of Joanna Wolosz’s mastery, who in turn can rely on receiving processed balls from a libero of Monica De Gennaro’s stature or an outside of Miriam Sylla’s excellence. But Egonu showed her scoring prowess during Wednesday’s game in Novara not only in attack (13 points), but also in serving (three aces) and in blocking (two stuffs), to become the top point-maker of the match. More than half of her 18 points were break points, which means that not only the side-out worked well for Imoco in the game. And it could not be any different, when the victory is as emphatic as this one (75-56 in total points) and the opponents did not make that many more unforced errors.

But when it comes to the other semifinal series, the eventual victory is indeed still a coin toss. Italy’s Unet e-work Busto Arsizio really dropped a bomb in the middle of Istanbul when they climbed back from two sets down against prominent hosts VakifBank to emerge with a 3-2 (20-25, 17-25, 25-21, 25-13, 15-13) victory. Most impressively, they did so without making any changes to their starting seven from one set to the next, so it was not a matter of certain players having a day, but rather of composure, self-confidence, discipline and perseverance. They did not have an outstanding scorer to take charge and full responsibility; they had two outstanding point-makers to lead the team efforts to success. Canadian international Alexa Gray delivered 22 points, while also receiving more than half of the opponents’ serves. Italian opposite Camilla Mingardi added another 21, spread nicely across the elements – three aces, 15 spikes and three blocks.

To win away ahead of a return match at home usually improves the odds tremendously, but when the opponents are VakifBank Istanbul, that’s hardly the case. Coach Giovanni Guidetti’s squad are not a team that would simply give up just because they somehow let a win slip away. With arguably the world’s best setter Maja Ognjenovic and the world’s best middle Milena Rasic, as well as a strikingly prolific opposite like Swedish star Isabelle Haak, who scored the match high of 27 points, on the court, the Turkish powerhouse are still enjoying the status of favourites in this duel, be it in a somewhat diminished brightness after the unfolding of the first game’s thrill.

Visit the semifinals’ match centres.