Verhees returns home as MAASEIK start 20th CL campaign

Maaseik, Belgium, October 7, 2020. VC Greenyard MAASEIK travelled earlier this week to Switzerland to contest the only single round robin tournament scheduled for Pool E in Round 1 of the CEV Champions League Volley 2021. The last Belgian national league winners (the 2020 season ended abruptly with no champions following the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis) are due to play hosts Lindaren Volley AMRISWIL and Shakhtior SOLIGORSK from Belarus. The winners will face TRENTINO Itas and Dinamo MOSCOW in the next round for a spot in the group stage of the competition.
 
With prestigious wins in the last two campaigns over elite teams such as PGE Skra BELCHATOW, Zaksa KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE, JASTRZEBSKI Wegiel and even six-time Champions League winners Zenit KAZAN, the multiple Belgian champions have indeed a solid reputation to defend.

“Of course, we are a well-known club in Europe, and we are starting our 20th Champions League campaign in a row,” head coach Joel Banks explains. “This says a lot about the level of our club, and about the level we have always reached in Europe. Therefore, we are looking forward to starting in this phase but we need to be ready this week, since the winner takes it all in this first round.”

For comeback kid Pieter Verhees, this Champions League is a special one. “My last Champions League games date to from 2012, when I played my last year in Belgium, with Vital Heynen as my coach. We won the triple with a very strong Maaseik: league title, cup and Supercup. In Europe we went through to the playoff round, in which we only lost to an extremely strong TRENTINO, the eventual champions of that edition.”

Now Verhees is back in Maaseik, after spending eight successful seasons abroad: seven in Italy, one in Poland. “The most beautiful memory is my Italian Cup win with Volley MODENA. The whole town went crazy, since it was their first trophy in 13 years. I also played two European Cup finals with Andreoli LATINA, CEV Cup in 2013 and Challenge Cup in 2014. But I am glad to take up this new episode on the highest European level with Maaseik.”

The first step towards reaching the group stage has to come in Switzerland. “It is somehow a strange concept this year. Due to COVID-19, we had to reduce the three weekly tournaments to just one in Amriswil. It is a matter of being ready from the first point on, because these two games against SOLIGORSK and Lindaren AMRISWIL are very important. Even if we are the favourites, you never know: we have just started the new season. Anything can happen. We have to be really focused, because we want to meet TRENTINO and Dinamo MOSCOW in the next round,” Verhees concludes.