Imoco, a record week: Vakif in the sights

The Prosecco Doc expected tomorrow in Chieri and Sunday in Cuneo: winning both would enter the Guinness Book of Records

/ CONEGLIANO

The entry “undefeated teams” on Wikipedia is not there, but within a few days someone could think about it, writing the name of Imoco Volley: the 71 consecutive victories of the panthers are pressing the absolute record of the Vakifbank, set between 23 October 2012 and January 22, 2014. The matches of international competitions in which the club has participated are also counted, very frequent both in the case of the Turkish yellow and black and in the case of the Italian yellow and blue: there is the Champions League and the Club World Cup, which however it is not part of Conegliano’s current winning streak, but of what was the previous record of Daniele Santarelli’s team. In fact, in the first part of the 2019/20 season there were 17 victories in a row, culminating in the world title won in Shaoxing; on his return to Italy and with his formation extensively remodeled, the defeat, perhaps avoidable, came on the field of Perugia. From there began the sequence, still uninterrupted, which is becoming one of the main reasons of interest in this phase of the championship: Conegliano, despite having lost a couple of points in the tiebreaks with Monza and Busto, is first in the standings, a position that he permanently occupies from the end of January 2019. Now in the sights there are two away matches in Piedmont, tomorrow in Chieri, brilliant third force of the championship, and Sunday in Cuneo: winning both would mean equaling the Guinness of Vakif, which however would remain in the record book, having reached the finish line first. The absolute primacy can be reached by adding the victory over Trento on Sunday 21st; but first these two are needed and even a single false step would jeopardize everything. There have been two other formations capable of reaching these unbeaten levels, but only at national level: the Pro Recco, men’s water polo team, where however there is also a draw, reached 73 in 2017, overcoming the volleyball players of Teodora Ravenna, who between March 15, 1985 and December 8, 1987 had struck 72 victories in a row in the league (Conegliano is 46, a share that rises to 55 counting the Italian Cup and Super Cup). At the time Daniele Santarelli was still in kindergarten and Monica De Gennaro was a newborn; the playoffs had just been introduced, there was still a change of ball, the sets reached 15, any win was worth two points and zero defeat, the free didn’t exist. It was a very different volley from the current one, with Soviet teams dominating the then Champions Cup; the eventual record of Conegliano will have even more value, because it was achieved in all tournaments and in a much more competitive context. –