It’s Milan-Conegliano again: it’s time for the Champions semi
The weekend of the CEV Champions League Final Four opened with the presentation press conference, held this morning at the’Istanbul Marriott Hotel Asia. Istanbul is ready to receive the four strongest teams on the continent, in a two-day event that speaks Italian – with three teams from the Bel Paese present on Turkish soil and en plein of Italian coaches – and that puts the prestigious European title up for grabs.
The Numia Vero Volley Milan will be engaged on Saturday, May 3 at 3 p.m. (live Sky Sport One and DAZN) at the Ülker Sports Arena where they will find on the other side of the net – for the eighth time in the year 2024/25 ’the Venetian A. Carraro Prosecco Doc Conegliano, in a semifinal that is worth access to Sunday’s final.
“We are well aware of the difficulty of this semifinal, we know the’opponent well and we are prepared to give our best– said coach Lavarini -. I want to thank all the staff and the’organization of the Turkish Federation for the warm welcome they have given us, we are ready to reciprocate this welcome by trying to give the audience tomorrow a great show on the court”.
“We come to this appointment at the end of a long and intense season – added Alessia Orro – Once again, on the other side of the net there will be Conegliano, a team we know well and with whom we have shared many challenges, both in the past and during this year. We hope it will be a hard-fought and exciting match, like last year’s final. We will give our best to provide a show that lives up to the expectations of all those present”.
Milan-Conegliano has now become a classic of domestic and international volleyball: there are no less than 45 previous matches between the two teams. The two teams are returning to face each other in the European arena after last year’s Super Final, played in Antalya and won by the Panthers 3-2; more recent, on the other hand, is the Scudetto Final series that saw Conegliano lift the Italian champions’ trophy against the Milanese. In the first semifinal of the day, Orro and companions are ready to tread the taraflex of the Turkish facility to try to overturn the odds and thus reach the second historic final – consecutive – in the top continental competition.
In the second semifinal, also scheduled for Saturday, May 3 at 6 p.m., it will instead be a challenge between coach Giovanni Guidetti’s Turkish champions VakifBank Istanbul and newcomer Savino Del Bene Scandicci, which arrives undefeated to the final act of the Champions League, in which it is participating for the first time in the club’s history.
