Christenson and Holt in Blue and Yellow?

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Will these two be teaming up in Italy next year?

It was a rough season for Azimut Modena.  It had quite a bit of promise after winning the 2016 Italian Superlega.  They were getting Bruno back to handle the setting duties.  Earvin N'Gapteth was still in the lineup.  While Lucas remained in Brazil, Max Holt was coming from Dynamo Moscow to be a more than capable replacement in the middle.   Luca Vettori had departed, but Giulio Sabbi has a track record of being a prolific scorer.  The retirement of Petric brought Tine Urnaut to the club, one of the greats at Trentino.  To top it all off, Radostin Stoychev would be running the show from the sideline.  This is the man who has won the Russian Super League, the Italian Championship (either Serie A1 or the SuperLega) on 3 occasions, the CEV Champions League on 3 occasions, and the FIVB World Club Championships 4 times.  It was looking like they were going to be the main competition to attempt to knock Lube Civitanova off the peak of Italian volleyball supremacy. 

The Modena players did not particularly get along with Stoychev.  It was visible in the body language in timeouts, and they even talked about it in television interviews.  They finished the regular season in 3rd and were bounced in the semifinals by Lube.  Stoychev's services were not retained for the upcoming season.  Instead they will bring in Velasco from Argentina.  The turmoil lead to the departure of Earvin N'Gapeth to Zenit Kazan to replace Wilfredo Leon (who is headed to Perugia).  Bruno also had also signed a contract with Lube Civitanova back in March.  That paved the way for Micah Christenson to come.   The president of Lube also stated Christenson signed with Modena, though he has not been presented by the club yet.  One big name that has been announced for Modena is Ivan Zaytsev.  The preferred opposite has spent the last two seasons playing outside hitter for Perugia.  With Leon coming into the ranks, Zaytsev saw the writing on the wall and made the move to Modena to play back on the right side again.  It seems certain that Modena is putting together a solid lineup to return back to the top of the podium come next May. 

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