While the Bulgarian national team prepares for their first test in Poland before the long volleyball summer,Italy, Turkey and the Netherlands – three of our most serious opponents in VNL 2025 and the World Championship – are already warming up for the prestigious tournamentAIA AeQuilibrium Cup Women Elite, which starts today in Modena 🇮🇹.

📍 The tournament, which will be played from May 23 to 25 in thePalaPaniniarena, features Italy, Turkey, Germany, and the Netherlands – teams with medal ambitions this summer.

🔜When we face them:

• 🆚Netherlands fourth match of the first VNL tournament in Ottawa, Canada

• 🆚Italy June 18 in Hong Kong, during the second VNL tournament

• 🆚Turkey August 25 at World Championship in Thailand

Significant absences:

• For Italy, Paola Egonu and setter Ofelia Malinov are not playing.

• Turkey is without its star Melissa Vargas and middle blocker Zehra Gunes but with Karakurt in the squad, and Ilkin Aydinwill not be able to play due to injury.
  
  🎥 All Italy matches will be broadcast live onRai SportandDiscovery+, as well as through the RaiPlay digital platform.

🗓Program:

• May 23
  16:30: Germany 🆚 Turkey
  20:00: Italy 🆚 Netherlands 🇮🇹📺

• May 24
  16:30: Germany 🆚 Netherlands
  20:00: Italy 🆚 Turkey 🇮🇹📺

• May 25
  14:00: Turkey 🆚 Netherlands
  17:00: Italy 🆚 Germany 🇮🇹📺
  
  

• For us, this tournament is valuable not only because of the class of the teams, but also because it gives us the opportunity toanalyze Bulgaria's opponents in a real game environmentbefore the clashes this summer! 🇧🇬💪