Italian coaches with a rich history meet for the first time ever as foes in Cebu City, with Alessandro Lodi's Farm Fresh taking on Ettore Guidetti's Nxled for a PVL on Tour quarterfinals slot.
CEBU CITY — Alessandro Lodi will be facing a familiar face when his Farm Fresh Foxies tangle with the Nxled Chameleons, with his decades-long friend Ettore Guidetti coaching at the other end of the taraflex on Sunday.
Serving as a curtain closer on the Cebu leg of the PVL on Tour at the University of San Jose-Recoletos Coliseum here, Lodi and Guidetti cross paths as adversaries for the first time.
Hailing from the same town in Italy, the two coaches have a lot of previous encounters — including a stint where Lodi served as Guidetti’s assistant at the turn of the millennium with Italian club Forme Cucina Veca Carpi.
With an outright quarterfinals spot on the line, Lodi spoke about the interesting PVL on Tour affair.
“Ettore is not just another Italian, we come from the city, we’ve known each other for 28 years. We worked together. The first year that Ettore was head coach at the professional level, I was his assistant, that was season 2001-2002. We go way back,” Lodi said after Farm Fresh’s win over Galeries Tower on Saturday night.
[READ: Farm Fresh Foxies stay hot with sweep of struggling Galeries Tower in PVL on Tour]
“We not only speak Italian, but we speak our regional dialect and we pretty much have the same background. We share a lot of the same methods, philosophies and history behind us,” he added.
Though not one to dwell on things that do not involve making his team better, Lodi does admit that Guidetti’s longer exposure to Philippine volleyball gives him an upper hand in their first PVL matchup.
But Lodi isn’t one to complain. Rather, he’s looking forward to any antics that might come about from the two fiery coaches on opposite sides of the court.
“Nice surprise of course [to be with him here], we’ve always been in touch," he said.
"He got here to the Philippines, seven, eight months before me so he knows a lot more than me specifically and I’m trying to learn so, [it’s] first time ever that we’ll play against each other. But again, it’s just one game of many. There is no special [thing]."
“Once the game begins, it’s all just a team against a team and maybe every now and then, there’s gonna be a little eye contact and a smile between the two coaches but that’s pretty much it," Lodi added.
At the end of the day, Lodi is simply happy to catch up with a colleague even while somewhere so far away from their town in Italy.
From Modena, Italy, to the Queen City of the South in the Philippines, volleyball continues to connect Lodi and Guidetti.
“[It’s a] pleasure to have him here and to be close to each other, from the same city and here in the other side of the world,” he said.
Lodi and Guidetti’s chess match will serve as the main event of the PVL on Tour double header which will cap off the Cebu leg at 6:30 pm on Sunday.