With a typical gift for the dramatic Italians like to refer to their league as ‘la piu’ bella campionato del mondo’.  For most of the last 25 years nobody could disagree with the statement.  Italians have had the most resources, paid the most money and therefore attracted the best players.  The overall quality of play has been the highest of all the leagues with the playoffs being typically the best quality volleyball on the planet (Olympics included).

But a few things have happened in the last few years.  Firstly, more money started coming into the Russian league and attracted the Russian players back home.  Then a couple of big clubs in a few leagues (like France, Poland and Greece) started to be able to get together enough money to build great teams.  The leagues didn’t get much stronger overall, but great teams popped up in new places and suddenly Italian clubs weren’t dominating Champions League like they had.

In the last 4 or 5 years, the Russians have opened their doors and started throwing BIG money around.  A lot of players are still reluctant to live in Russia so the effect has not been dramatic, but Russia is clearly now the biggest paying league.  On top of that, more teams in leagues such as Greece, Poland and Turkey have got together enough money that the players just below the very highest level can make more money there than they would in Italy, without having to live in Russia.  Brazil is making one of its periodic attempts to boost its own league and has attracted many Brazilians back home.  And in Italy it has not been plain sailing.  Big clubs in Rome and Milan folded during the summer throwing the player market into chaos.  Among other effects Miljkovic could find no team in Italy and had to go to Greece and Mastrangelo may play A2 as he tries to force Rome to honour his contract.

So the upshot is that this season, the Italian league may be the weakest it has been in a long, long time.  As some kind of indication, only 4 (of 36) medal winners from the Beijing will be playing in Italy this season.  More than half will be playing in Russia (notably Ball, Stanley, Priddy, Giba, Dante), and most of the rest will be in Brazil.  With the late demise of Rome and the subsequent complications there are 3 genuinely weak teams in the league and some clubs that have historically fought against relegation will this season be fighting for the playoffs.  That having been said there is still plenty of intrigue.  Champions Trento have lost 2 starters and may come back to the pack a little while perennial contenders in Piacenza, Macerata and Cuneo will have sights set on at least semi final positions.  But as ever the most interest lies in Treviso.  After playing off for the championships in 12 of the previous 13 years they bombed out at the quarter final stage last season.  They identified the problem as being the setter and made only one change to the team, bringing in the Brazilian Ricardo.  While normally considered to be the best setter in the world he has had problems recently with the National Team and his previous Italian club and plays a completely different style of game to that which has served Treviso so well for the last 6 or 7 seasons.  For this reason alone many insiders are more excited about how this season will play out than they have for many years. The side plot will be how several young Italian players develop, notably Martino in Macerata and Parodi in Verona.  For Australians, Dan Howard’s Montichiari are slightly stronger on paper than last season and should be well in the playoff mix.

So while Serie A1 is no longer the richest league, and may not even be the best, Italians will likely still argue it is the most beautiful.

Follow it yourself at the league site or volleyball news site.