Perugia return to Final Four carrying the weight of champions and the calm that comes with it
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There is a different kind of pressure that follows a team once it has reached the top of Europe. For Sir Sicoma Monini PERUGIA, the challenge is no longer only about winning the CEV Champions League Volley. It is about staying there, among the few clubs capable of turning success into identity.
Wassim Ben Tara has emerged as one of the competition’s most reliable scorers with 127 Champions League points this season after also finishing as joint-top scorer at the Club World Championship. Yet the Tunisian opposite immediately shifts attention away from individual numbers.
“The most important thing is that the team wins,” Ben Tara said. “Everybody tries to help each other. The coach always finds the right words to give us confidence.”
Ben Tara also understands the challenge awaiting Perugia against a physically imposing Polish side.
“I played in Poland, so I know Warszawa. But the most important thing is to play our Volleyball and focus on what we need to do. The serve will be very important.”
That idea, imposing their own rhythm, echoes throughout the Perugia camp. Giannelli believes tempo and emotional control will define the semi-final.
“We have to play at our rhythm and impose our style of Volleyball,” the reigning Champions League MVP explained. “But we also have to be ready for the moments when they raise their level, and we have to battle through difficult situations together.”
The setter speaks with the calm of someone who has experienced both heartbreak and triumph in Europe. Before finally lifting the trophy with Perugia last season, Giannelli had already lost two Champions League finals. Now, he leads a group chasing something only one Italian men’s club has achieved this century: back-to-back European titles.
History, however, is not something Perugia openly discuss.
Lorenzetti avoids words like legacy. Instead, he returns to process, to presence, to emotional balance. “After every set, the next one must feel like a completely new beginning,” he said.
Perhaps that is why this Perugia team feels so dangerous. They carry the confidence of champions without the weight of entitlement. They know how difficult it is to return to this stage, and how quickly control can disappear in a Final Four.
But they also know what it feels like to finish the journey holding the trophy.
And that memory remains very much alive.
