Serie A1 Femminile 2026/27 (F)

Eleven titles in a row, from 1981 to 1991. That is the bar every dynasty in Italian volleyball is chasing, and it was set by Teodora Ravenna, who in 1992 also brought Italy its first Club World Championship. The championship has been played since 1946 — the first scudetto went to Amatori Bergamo — and has been called Serie A1 since 1977; 2026/27 is the 82nd edition.

After Ravenna, power changed hands era by era. Matera won four straight between 1992 and 1995; Foppapedretti Bergamo collected eight titles between 1996 and 2011; Perugia and Pesaro shared six titles between 2003 and 2010, three apiece. Novara, the perennial contender, won their only scudetto in 2017 and the Champions League in 2019, in a Berlin final against Conegliano in which Paola Egonu put up 27 points.

Imoco Volley was founded on 15 March 2012 and reached the final in its very first season. But the fact that explains everything is a different one: since 2017/18, Daniele Santarelli's first season on their bench, Conegliano have won every scudetto that has been handed out. The pandemic left the 2020 title unassigned, so the official count stands at eight in a row: three short of Teodora.

Twenty-five wins from twenty-six rounds. Conegliano finished the regular season with a single defeat, against Milano — the same opponent that would inflict the only other league loss of their year. The quarter-finals were a formality: all four series ended 2-0, the Panthers' against Busto Arsizio included. In the semi-finals Novara went down 3-0 for the third year running, while Milano beat Scandicci 3-1.

The final opened on 11 April with a 3-2 at the Palaverde and continued on the 15th with a 3-0 in Milan. On the 19th came the crack: Egonu scored 34 points, Milano won 3-1 on the champions' court and the third set finished 30-28. Three days later Conegliano closed out the series, and Isabelle Haak was named finals MVP; the regular season's top scorer had been Egonu.

Outside the league, the year was less tidy. Conegliano won the Coppa Italia in Turin with three tight sets against Scandicci (31-29, 26-24, 27-25), but lost the Supercoppa to Milano after winning seven straight, the Club World Championship final in São Paulo to that same Scandicci (1-3), and a Champions League semi-final against VakifBank in which they had led 2-0 and 22-17. At the bottom, Perugia and Pinerolo finished last and went down.

Conegliano barely touch the core. Joanna Wolosz is still setting, Isabelle Haak and Gabi still hit, Zhu Ting and Sarah Fahr stay, and Monica De Gennaro guards the back row. Santarelli begins his tenth season on the bench, and the first shot at silverware comes early: the Supercoppa against Scandicci on the weekend of 24-25 October.

Milano are betting on continuity, with Stefano Lavarini and with Egonu, who renewed in May and starts her fourth straight season at the club, her second as captain. They have played three of the last four finals and were the only side to beat Conegliano in the league last season; they open the calendar against Firenze. Scandicci, the reigning club world champions, lose Ekaterina Antropova to Turkey's Eczacibasi, and Novara start a new cycle with Massimo Barbolini as head coach.

The two newcomers have opposite stories. Talmassons, from a village in Friuli, are back in A1 a year after going down, having won the Pool Promozione; Brescia come up through the promotion playoffs. In between sits the Coppa Italia, whose Final Four is played on 13-14 February.

Twenty-six rounds on a mirrored calendar: the second half repeats the order of the first with home and away reversed. There are three midweek dates — 21 October, 11 November and 9 December — and a nine-day break after the round of 26-27 December, until the Epiphany fixture on 6 January. A 3-0 or 3-1 win is worth three points; a 3-2 win is worth two, and the side that loses the tie-break takes one.

That split matters more than it looks. Last season Scandicci and Milano finished level on 62 points with 22 and 20 wins respectively: tie-breaks won and lost moved the table as much as results did.

The top eight go into the scudetto playoffs, with best-of-three quarter-finals and best-of-five semi-finals and final. Ninth to twelfth contest the Challenge Playoff, a home-and-away knockout with a golden set if needed, which in recent seasons has handed out a place in Europe's Challenge Cup. And at the bottom, last season the last two went down.