A regular pre-season friendly will turn into a special moment for the Stankovic family. On Saturday, September 26, at 6:00 PM, Cucine Lube Civitanova will host Yuasa Battery Grottazzolina at the Eurosuole Forum, and for the first time, father and son – Dragan and Luka Stankovic – will stand on opposite sides of the net.
For Dragan, this will be another return to a hall he knows perfectly, but this time the story is different. The Serbian middle blocker spent ten seasons with the Lube team – from 2009/10 to 2018/19, won numerous trophies, and earned the captain's armband for one of the most successful Italian clubs. Now, the 40-year-old Stankovic continues his career with Grottazzolina.
On the other side will be his 15-year-old son Luka, who grew up in the Lube academy. The connection between the two was documented by the club back in August 2011, when Lube announced the birth of Dragan and his wife Mirjana's first child – Luka, born in Belgrade at a time when his father was already wearing the red and white jersey.
Fifteen years later, Luka is already forging his own path in volleyball. He is an outside hitter for Academy Volley Lube and this summer was part of the Italian U17 national team at the World Championship in Doha. After the tournament, young Stankovic joined the training of Lube's first team and has been training with Giampaolo Medei's players since the beginning of September.
Thus, on Saturday, a curious volleyball circle closes – former Serbian international Dragan Stankovic will face his son Luka, who already wears the Italian jersey in his age group.
The story also has a third hero. Lube's sports director Marko Podrascanin will observe the match from the sidelines – a man with whom Dragan Stankovic shared not only the Serbian national team's locker room for years, but also Lube's. The two middle blockers were part of a strong generation of Serbia, and their careers intertwined in Civitanova as well. Now the roles are completely different – Stankovic is still on the court, Podrascanin now leads Lube's sports policy, and Dragan's son is taking his first steps towards big-time volleyball precisely at the club that connected the careers of the two.
The family reunion will also have a special audience. Lube announced that representatives of the Stankovic family will be in the stands at the Eurosuole Forum, some of whom are arriving from Serbia specifically for the match. This time they will have to divide their support between the two halves of the court.
For Lube, this will be the fourth joint training session of the preparation for the new season. Medei's team is still awaiting the return of the national team players who participated in international tournaments during the summer. Lube and Grottazzolina will meet again just four days later – on September 30 at PalaSavelli in Porto San Giorgio.

But regardless of the result on Saturday, one of the moments of the evening is already known in advance – when Dragan Stankovic looks across the net and sees his son on the other side, wearing the jersey of the club where he himself spent ten years of his career.