The Club Voleibol Melilla Ciudad del Deporte started its pre-season in an unbeatable way by beating Unicaja Costa de Almería 3 sets to 0 in the first friendly match of the campaign. The match was played this past Saturday at the Moisés Ruiz Pavilion in the city of Indalense, leaving Melilla coach Salim Abdelkader with good feelings.
The match started with Melilla somewhat timid in its actions, but with a solid exchange of serves by both teams. Throughout the sets, the game remained fairly even, but it was the gladiators who pushed at key moments, managing to win the different sets. Despite the victory, Abdelkader was cautious, acknowledging that there is still a lot of work to do.
The coach is aware that training must be intensified in view of the regular season of the Super League, and he stressed that this match was an opportunity to test different rotations and better understand the potential of his pupils.
With a mix of confidence and caution, the Melilla team is already looking ahead to its next test: a friendly next weekend in the Portuguese capital, where they will face Sporting Club de Lisboa. This match will be a new challenge for the team, which is looking to fine-tune its performance before the start of the official competition. The season is promising and Club Voleibol Melilla Ciudad del Deporte continues to work to be at the highest level.
Head coach
The leading exponent of the Melilla bench, Salim Abdelkader, highlighted that “we started a little timidly, testing each other out, but little by little we raised the level of our game, even though they were putting a lot of pressure on their serve. At the beginning, we started a little more confidently, then when it came to serving, the truth is that the team had a very good feeling in the last set points, when the team was pushing it was noticeable a little and well, at the end of that first set, when we arrived very evenly matched, the team pushed and we were unable to get ahead. The second set was good, it was similar to starting one with a 3 or 4 point advantage and we knew how to hold on to this difference.”
Regarding the rotation of his players, he declared that “we played with a sextet in the first set. In the second set we changed a lot of players and we also changed the setter. In the third set, he played a little more aggressively with the serve. It is also true that in the second set we pushed with the serve, but it did not go in and in the third set, your luck continues, not with the serve, the pace of the game was much better, the team was much better positioned and nothing happened. We got a fairly wide advantage, from the beginning to the end and well, the truth is that I am happy because all the players showed an interesting level to do the third week of work. The truth is that there were a few mistakes, there were a lot of serve roles, but well, that is part of the game, but it is not stupid or game communication networks, no, that is normal and the session was really quite good, there is still a lot of work to do.”
Finally, he wanted to emphasize that “we have to keep working on small details and keep improving every week. This coming weekend we have a very good test, just another test of a little bit more level against Sporting Lisbon and well, we will see how the team responds on Portuguese soil,” where they will face a great team within the European volleyball scene.
