Full name | Modena Volley Punto Zero SSDRL | ||
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Short name | Azimut Modena | ||
Founded | 1966 | ||
Ground | PalaPanini Modena (Capacity: 5211) |
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Chairman | Catia Pedrini | ||
Manager | Roberto Piazza | ||
Captain | Nemanja Petric | ||
League | Italian Volleyball League | ||
Website | Club home page | ||
Uniforms | |||
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Modena Volley is a professional volleyball team based in Modena, Italy. It plays in the highest level of the Italian Volleyball League without interruption since 1968 and it is the most successful Italian club, having won twelve times the national league and the national cup as well. The club is one of the most prominent and prestigious in Europe too, having achieved thirteen European trophies including four CEV Champions League. Modena is ranked 38th (as of October 2016) in the Men's European clubs ranking. Currently there are important sponsorship deals among the others with Randstad and New Holland Agriculture, but the main sponsor of the club is Azimut.
The club was founded in 1966 by Benito and Giuseppe Panini, owners of Edizioni Panini publishing house, and was named Gruppo Sportivo Panini (or simply G.S. Panini). The club, trained by Franco Anderlini, started from Serie C (the third level of the Italian League) and achieved the Serie A in 1968, taking only two seasons. Since then it has never been relegated to lower divisions.
It took only another season to achieve the first Italian League, in 1969/70, the victory was led by the Czechoslovak superstar Josef Musil. With Anderlini as head coach Modena won three championships, but in 1975/76 he resigned and was replaced by Polish Edward Skorek who acted as player-coach, leading Panini to another national title. By the end of the 1970s Modena clinched four Italian leagues, two Italian cups and its first European trophy, the 1979/80 CEV Cup Winners' Cup, with the Brazilian Bernard Rajzman and the Italian Francesco Dall'Olio as leaders of the team.
In the 1980s Modena had even greater successes: managed by Julio Velasco the team gained four consecutive Italian leagues and many national and international cups. In 1989 Velasco was appointed head of the Italian national team, leaving Modena where he was replaced by Vladimir Jankovic. Even without Velasco, Modena became European champion winning the 1989/90 CEV Champions League.