Big drama in Modena, or how Zaytsev helps former teammates

It’s one for the books, a story of the ones that decades from now those who lived through it will tell their grandchildren with tears in their eyes - tears of joy for the fans from Modena and tears of sorrow for those from Warsaw...

In Italy, it will go like this:

“It was on February 11 of the year 2021, the last day of action in Pool D of the Champions League. Our team, Leo Shoes Modena, were in the lead of the standings. One point from the last match, that is winning two sets, would have been enough to move on to the quarterfinals. We were playing at home, but it was the time of the great coronavirus pandemic, so no spectators were allowed to the hall. We were up against Knack Roeselare of Belgium, a team we had beaten at their gym a couple of months earlier and had only one win so far in the pool, without any chances of advancing. It seemed like a done deal, but it wasn’t...

“Shockingly, the Belgians crushed us in three sets. On the previous night, we were also surprised by our main rivals in the pool, VERVA Warszawa ORLEN Paliwa from Poland. Twice in that match, we were in the lead, but they kept coming back and eventually won the tiebreak. It was our first loss in the pool, after four victories in a row. Now we had our second defeat and everything seemed to be slipping out of our hands. The guys from Warsaw needed any kind of win in their last game that evening to top the pool and take our spot in the quarterfinals.

“Just like in their match against us, they came back from a set down twice in the match, but then Fortuna smiled at us. So did Ivan Zaytsev. He was a legendary Italian player, who had played for our club the previous two seasons, but now he competed for Kuzbass Kemerovo, the Russian team that were playing against the Poles that night. They had no chance of qualifying, but it was as if he was trying to help his former teammates come out of dire straits. In the fifth set, Zaytsev aced twice and then blocked to set up match point. He was, in fact, his team’s best scorer of the match. Kuzbass won and our Modena guys kept the first place to advance to the quarterfinals where we met another Italian team, from Perugua, but that’s another story...”

In Poland, the story will go like this:

“It was in Modena, Italy on February 11 of the year 2021, the last set in Pool D of the Champions League. Our team, VERVA, needed to win just nine points in that set to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time in the history of the competition. It was a tiebreak against Kuzbass, a strong team from Russia indeed, but also a team we had beaten in straight sets at the first tournament in Belgium...

“We were second in the pool standings after that first tournament, behind the team from Modena who had defeated us 3-0. With the second tournament taking place on their home ground, it seemed unlikely that we would be able to fight our way to the first place, but we were hoping to do well enough to at least progress as one of the best three pool runners-up. On the first day in Modena, we took the three points against Knack Roeselare from Belgium and the home team did so against Kuzbass. The big clash between the two squads from Italy and Poland was on the second day. We played a good match, our Bartosz Kwolek scored 25 points and we won 3-2, but with this result the Italians were still ahead of us in the standings. And they had what we thought was an easy match on the last day.

“To our surprise, they lost to the Belgians in straight sets and opened up a big opportunity for us to take over the top of the pool and go forward to the quarterfinals. At that moment, it was already clear that the second team from our pool would not advance. So we needed any kind of win over Kuzbass, but as the score was 2-2, the calculations showed that even if we lost the tiebreak, a mere nine points would be enough to surpass the Italians on point ratio. But maybe the pressure on our guys was just too much. They kept making one mistake after another and this Italian guy Ivan Zaytsev, a big star playing for the Russian team at the time, seemed really keen on finishing their pool campaign with a win. We lost that tiebreak 15-5, just four points away from a historic success...”

Visit Pool D’s match centres.