“Pressure only exists if you allow it”: Giannelli and Ben Tara lead Perugia in Torino

There is something unmistakably calm about Sir Sicoma Monini PERUGIA when the stakes rise highest.

Perhaps it comes from experience. Perhaps from victory. Or perhaps from surviving the kind of matches that change a team forever. One year after conquering Europe for the first time and months after lifting the FIVB Club World Championship trophy, Perugia arrive at another CEV Champions League Volley Final Four carrying neither fear nor obsession, only belief.

That confidence begins with captain Simone Giannelli, the heartbeat of a team that has learned how to navigate pressure without letting it consume them.

“We are very happy to have reached this Final Four because it’s never something you can take for granted,” Giannelli said. “It has been a long journey through the entire season, and we want to enjoy this experience because it’s going to be something really special.”

The setter’s words reveal an important part of Perugia’s mentality. For all the trophies already collected by this group, the hunger has not softened. If anything, it has sharpened.

Perugia’s rise over the last two seasons has transformed the Italian club into one of the defining powers in European Volleyball. They arrive at the Final Four on a 12-match Champions League winning streak and with an extraordinary record under coach Angelo Lorenzetti, winning 26 of their last 27 international matches across the Champions League and Club World Championship.

Still, Giannelli insists the greatest challenge is never tactical; it is emotional.

“Pressure only exists if you create it or allow it to affect you,” he explained. “The pressure we feel is the one we put on ourselves because we know how much we want to perform well. But it’s a positive pressure.”

That emotional control will be tested against PGE Projekt WARSZAWA, the tournament’s great survivors. The Polish side has already come through multiple five-set battles this season, including dramatic Golden Set victories against TRENTINO Itas. No team remaining in the competition has played more sets or more minutes than Warszawa.

Giannelli expects another demanding night.

“They are a very technical team with a lot of high-level players,” he said. “We’ll need to impose our rhythm, but also be ready for the moments when they raise their level, and we have to battle together.”

If Giannelli provides Perugia’s composure, Wassim Ben Tara has increasingly become one of its finishing forces.

The Tunisian opposite arrives at the Final Four after another outstanding European campaign, leading Perugia with 127 Champions League points this season, already surpassing his total from last year’s title-winning run. He was also the joint-top scorer at the 2025 Club World Championship as Perugia claimed global gold in December.

Yet Ben Tara speaks about his role with striking simplicity.

“I always try to help the team and do everything I can to reach the goals of the group,” he said. “Sometimes you become top scorer, but for me the most important thing is that the team wins.”

That mentality reflects the balance within this Perugia roster. While stars like Giannelli, Yuki Ishikawa and Kamil Semeniuk attract headlines, Perugia’s strength has often come from the collective calm that exists around them.

“Everybody tries to help each other,” Ben Tara explained. “The coach always finds the right words to put us in confidence.”

Against Warszawa, he expects the physical battle at the net to be decisive.

“Polish teams are always physical. But for us, the key is to play our Volleyball and focus on what we need to do. The serve will be very important,” he said.

Unlike many players approaching a Final Four, Ben Tara insists he refuses to treat the occasion differently.

“I don’t try to change anything,” he said. “It’s a big event, of course, but I try to approach it like every other game this season, focusing on what I need to do on the court.”

That balance between ambition and control may be what makes Perugia so dangerous.

They are defending champions, but internally they do not speak about defending anything. Ben Tara made that clear.

“We already won it last year; nobody can take that away from us,” he said. “This is a new year, a new Final Four.”

And that may be the most important warning of all for the rest of Europe.