LUBE vs VERONA | FINAL Highlights | Coppa Italia 2025. Lube win another five-setter to grab eighth Coppa Italia trophy. Fabio Balaso earns the MVP recognition!
Another five-set battle crowned the men’s Del Monte Coppa Italia Final Four weekend, with Cucine Lube Civitanova emerging victorious over a fighting Rana Verona in Sunday’s final and celebrating their eighth trophy in the history of the competition. Lube’s libero and captain Fabio Balaso was honoured as the Most Valuable Player (MVP).
Lube produced a 3-2 (26-24, 25-15, 23-25, 21-25, 15-10) win after a tight duel, in which Verona came close to achieving another turnaround from two sets down after the one they did against Sir Susa Vim Perugia in Saturday’s semifinal. The squad from Civitanova, however, dominated the tie-breaker to triumph with their first Coppa Italia trophy since 2021. Before that, they earned the honour of lifting the national cup in 2001, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2017 and 2020. For their opponents, reaching the final was already a historic result, so the silver medal they collected was the club’s best achievement in the history of Coppa Italia.
A nip-and-tuck first set was pushed to overtime before Lube could take the lead in the match. After Verona’s early advantage in the second set, Lube quickly turned it around and dominated on the court to win it by a wide margin. It was still far from over though. Verona fought back and despite three consecutive aces by Lube’s Bulgarian star Aleksandar Nikolov towards the end of the set, they managed to stay alive in the game. Bulgarian coach Radostin Stoytchev’s team stayed well in control of the fourth set to prompt a tie-breaker, in which, however, the favourites from Civitanova regained the initiative and, with Nikolov spearheading the offence and Mattia Bottolo swinging for the winning point with a back-row hit, closed the match in their favour.
Outside hitter Bottolo was Lube’s best scorer of the game with 19 points to his name, including three aces. His Canadian cross-court teammate Eric Loeppky added another 17 points, while Nikolov, who was among the starters only for the last three sets of the match and played as an opposite, subbing in for his Turkish teammate Adis Lagumdzija, signed off with a 62% success rate in attack to finish with 16 points. Experienced libero and captain Fabio Balaso registered 42% good and 33% perfect reception and proved to be a true team leader for Lube, thus claiming the MVP award.
Verona’s Malian star Noumory Keita, who once again played as an outside hitter, put his scoring prowess on display and hammered out a match-high 30 points, including two aces. The team’s other outside and captain, Slovenia’s Rok Mozic, put away 13 points.
“This is incredible! This is my first trophy as a professional, so I’m very emotional,” an elated Aleks Nikolov told VBTV after the match. “I want to thank everybody that participated and we keep going! The year that just went by was the worst year of my life, but I feel great now. I am very grateful that I even have the opportunity to be on the court, let alone win something like a Coppa Italia! Now everybody knows that we are the champions of the Coppa Italia, so we are a team that can win and will win when we have the chance.”
“I don’t think anyone could have predicted this weekend – three amazing five-setters!” said Verona’s middle blocker Aidan Zingel. “It sucks to finish this way, but this is volleyball. We’ve done something extraordinary to make the finals, so we’ve got to keep our heads high and think of this as a huge step forward. Now we’ve got the playoffs to think about, so it’s not the end.”
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