After the first continental triumph: “Having arrived after looking for it so long is even more beautiful. Lorenzetti and Giannelli Super. Ishikawa bet won.”
He threw himself in the circle of his who jumped and sang “It is we/we are/the champions of Europe we are us”. With his debtoring style, in which the measure is not an option. “We are the strongest,” he shouted to the first microphone that passed him immediately after Plotnytskyi had put down the Champions League ball. And then away with his famous programmatic declaration, with which he had already started the countryside of Europe other times, only to stop in the most bitter and daring ways, five times in the semifinal, one, the first, in 2017, in the final: “From Lisbon to Vladivostok, Perugia reigns”. That’s this time yes, this time it is true. And the first words were enough to understand that it is not just a victory, it is a relief, it is a void that Gino Site, president of Sir Perugia, finally thinks he has filled. “From tonight I feel different, I feel like being part of the great European teams. Before it was as if I always lacked something. Now we are at the level of the best Italian clubs, I know that I can look at them in the eyes of equal to equal. Now we are all serene and without subjection”. The next day he collected all thoughts, memories and sensations.
His words on Sunday confirm that this Champions League had become an obsession …
“Well, in the end we have only been in SuperLega for only 13 years. It is true, however, that for the level we had already been for a few seasons, for the fact of having arrived close to us several times, we were missing the Champions League. It would not have been so beautiful if we had conquered it immediately, almost by chance. It is exciting, having arrived there after looking for it so long and with a lot of stubbornness”.
A path that started from Serie C …
“Volleyball did not know what it was. I looked at football. My son played basketball, suddenly he stopped going to the volleyball. To accompany him I entered the club that was then in Bastia Umbra, in Serie C. I became president: the first year we went to B2. After 5 of B1 we went to A2. I took Goran Vujevic, who brought us to A1 and who is still with us. sporty…”.
When the Zawieta came back, however, with those 14,000 who screamed, was it afraid?
“Yes. Especially because on Saturday I had seen the semifinal, in which in the first two sets it seemed that the Jastrzebski would win easy, that the zawiercie was finished. And instead these never die. In the final I was reviewing the same thing: the ball never fell”.
Who did you like more than hers?
“Ishikawa was very good: in reception ‘it did not burn’, and attacked more than all. And then well tara”.
Also because Ishikawa replaces Leon and managed to win what had escaped Leon …
“To demonstrate that he too is a great player. We didn’t go down.”
How does this victory place in comparison to the others?
“It’s the most beautiful. The messages here also say here (it shows the screen: there are still 162 not read, editor’s note). I had never arrived so many”.
From some statements by Lorenzetti it would be said that the defeat in the Scudetto semifinal in addition to the disappointment has also left a little discontent. Have there been friction?
“No. Lorenzetti and the staff were perfect. He and the captain, Giannelli, are exceptional for how they manage the team. Never as with them I feel accessory. Perhaps without the semifinal Scudetto lost the Champions League we would not have won it”.
Is it true that they are trying to take Michieletto for 2026-2027?
“It is true that we tried, and it is true that Trento keeps it tight.”
Now that he has won everything, who will do Perugia?
“In September we will go to Gedda for the Super Cup. Then in a mini-Tournée in Japan, with games on 7 and 8 October. In December at the Club World Cup. Now that we are European champions we are global”.
If they had told him in the time of Bastia Umbra …
“It wasn’t even in my dreams.”
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