/ CONEGLIANO
The Ljubljana castle will host the Champions League draw tomorrow at 6 pm, in which the reigning Imoco champions will know the three opponents to face in the group. The matches will develop with the now consolidated Italian round, which last year was played in the two bubbles of Nantes and Palaverde; for the panthers, who are included in the first pot, the scheme provides for the first home match against the fourth team, then two home matches for the third and second, the home match with the third, the away match from the fourth and closing within the friendly walls against the second tier team.
However, the ranking does not correspond to the technical level. The top seeds, together with Conegliano, are Novara, Vakifbank, Fenerbahçe and Lokomotiv Kaliningrad; in the second group there will be Chemik Police, Developres Rzeszow, Mulhouse, Béziers and Dinamo Mosca. The third is formed by Dresden, Maritza Plovdiv, Salo, Liberec, Nyiregyhaza; in the fourth there will be two qualifiers from the elimination rounds that started just yesterday, but also respectable loose mines such as Monza, Dinamo Kazan and Thy Istanbul. The qualifiers are attended by the winning teams of the national titles in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, Ukraine and Belarus, all respectable opponents, but certainly not favorites; also in Conegliano touched the preliminary stages in the 2017/18 season (the one with the record of 50 official races) culminating in third place in the Final Four in Bucharest.
For the fourth year in a row, the Panthers have direct access to the group stage, but they know well how many risks there can be first in the draw and then in the development of the group, if not approached in the right way; the unbeaten run in the Champions League has lasted for 18 consecutive games, those played after the defeat in Berlin against Igor. Not finding bad customers in the urn of Ljubljana would facilitate, at least on paper, the path towards qualification for the quarterfinals; in fact, the winners of the five groups and the three best runners-up will always go through. Marco Gaspari’s Saugella Monza, winner of the Cev Cup and debut in the top continental competition, was further strengthened with Mihajlovic, Stysiak, Lazovic, Zakchaiou, alongside Orro, Danesi, Gennari and Parrocchiale. In Dinamo Kazan there are two great former Gialloblùs like Fabris and Bricio, but also other experienced players such as the central Koroleva and the director Lazareva, as well as a large group of young and very young, on which the Russians are aiming to return to the international top. Talents such as Carlini, Rabadhzieva, Dixon, Kingdon, Van Ryk and Toksoy-Guidetti play at the Turk Hava Yollari led by Marcello Abbondanza; the red and white team took the place of the Eczacibasi of Ognjenovic and Boskovic, relegated to the Cev Cup after the fourth place in the championship. –