Both of our JCU Coed Volleyball and Men’s 5on5 Soccer teams took the field last night in their respective reprise of the Season of the Universities of Rome Championship.

MEN’S 5on5 SOCCER
JCU Men’s 5on5 Soccer team played against Link Campus University (LCU), a very challenging team to face for their first come-back game of the Season.

The game ended 5-6 in favor of LCU, but our Gladiators played an amazing game, giving proof of their technical qualities and teamwork.

JCU set up a very dynamic game, which gave trouble to LCU until the end of the first half. A few minutes into the game, JCU scored twice, immediatly taking the lead for 2-0 thanks to our forward Andrea Palazzi and midfielder Fernando Royuela.

LCU reacted and scored back. However, JCU didn’t blink at all at the opponents’ goal, and Fernando responded with another goal. The two teams ended in a back-to-back scoring situation, and the first half of the game saw a temporary result of 4-2 for our Gladiators thanks to another goal of our midfielder Fernando.

The second half began with LCU comeback who was able to overturn the result, 4-5. The game was not over for JCU who didn’t want to let the opponents win, and defender Ricardo Solano tied the score, 5-5.

However, due to a quite doubtful LCU penalty kick towards the end, the final whistle blew on 5-6 official result for the opposing team.

“Despite the loss, I don’t regret anything about the game because the team played really well, and I am really satisfied with my players,” coach Manuel Franceschi commented. “This final result is misleading because we didn’t deserve to lose. Contrarily to LCU, we were not able to exploit properly all the situations in front of the opponet’s goal post, and we paid for it.”

Then Manuel continued, “Tonight, all of the players clearly showed to represent a fundamental part of a cohesive team, and they helped each other in all the situations during the match.”

Congratulations, Gladiators! This is the right spirit that you need to hold on to if you want to win from now on.

Choosing the MVP was, in fact, a hard task for our coach last night. Thanks to his hat-trick, Fernando should receive this recognition as well as Andrea Palazzi who gave everything on the field, Ricardo who defended really well, and the captain Serafino Pinna Vodret who proved to have very good skills both on a technical and communicative level for the team.

“The entire team basically deserved to get the MVP for their perfomance. However, this time, I feel I shoud give it to our goalkeeper Andrea Monzani. Andrea played an outstanding game, and he has improved enormously also thanks to the personalized trainings that all of our JCU soccer team goalkeepers are currently doing,” coach Manuel concluded.

Good job, everyone!

COED VOLLEYBALL
After the previous games in the Oroverde Tournament, the time came for our JCU Coed Volleyball team to start the second half of the Season of Universities of Rome Championship.

JCU played against the University of Foro Italico (UFI), a valid opponent who earned a 3-0 win over our Gladiators.

In the first set, JCU played a decent game and was able to keep up with UFI who won 25-18. The second and third set, however, saw a complete fall from JCU who lost the two sets respectively 25-9 and 25-14.

“I am very disappointed at the way the game ended tonight, especially because UFI did not even line up the best team,” coach Stefano Papari commented. “We could have won the game because I know the quality of this team. I expect more from my players.”

“From what I saw tonight, it is not a problem of technical skills because many of these players have great pontential,” coach Stefano added. “However, we still lack a good dose of teamwork spirit and the ability to play well together and understand each other in the field. It is true that we didin’t have many trainings on our back, and they were probably tired from the previous-day game, but I feel like that the team needs to develop more motivation and determination, and we should work on that from now on.”

So don’t give up, Gladiators! Follow your coach guidance and next time, it’ll be a win!

MVP – Maria Auxiliadora Proano thanks to her positive attitude that she always maintains during the entire game whether she is playing or not.