After a year without playing any finals, the Trentino leadership gets down to work in May 2018 to create the conditions for a "good season". President Mosna and the General Manager are the first to believe in it, so much so that they want to adopt this phrase as a slogan of the season ticket campaign, which is selling a lot. With the arrivals of the top players Lisinac, Grebennikov and Russell (among the best in the world in the respective roles of middle-blocker, free and spiker) and the integration of Candellaro, the yellow-blue sextet changes its face again, also because in the meantime Kozamernik, Zingel, De Pandis and especially Captain Lanza have left Trento. There is also room for a return, but in this case not in the field but on the t-shirts: after six years of absence, the main sponsor returns to be the Itas Assicurazioni Group.
Led by Captain Giannelli, the team immediately gave a great exploit: in October it won against Perugia for 3-0 in Umbria in the Supercoppa Italiana semifinal and earned the Final, where the following day it lost only at the tie break against Modena. In SuperLega the yellow-blue team gains one of the first positions, but it is the international game that gives the greatest satisfactions.
At the end of November the Club is invited to participate in the 2018 Club World Cup in Poland. Trentino Diatecx (this is the name chosen for the event) starts quietly but then becomes stronger every day: it wins the first round phase of the Final Four and then it wins against Novy Urengoy in the semifinals obtaining the qualification to a new awarded final. On December 2nd in Czestochowa Trentino Volley returns to be the World Champion thanks to the 3-1 victory against Cucine Lube Civitanova: it is the fifth world title thanks to the great performances of Giannelli, Kovacevic and Russell, voted mvp of the event.
The return to Trento is triumphant; Itas Trentino also plays in the championship and in the CEV Cup, and it gains the top of the rank and reaching twenty-one consecutive victories in regular season, Italian Cup and international events (it got more only in 2013). At the end of January the defeat against Lube takes away the record of Lorenzetti's team, who later wins against Verona and obtains the qualification in the Coppa Italia Final Four in Bologna. Event that in early February faces not in the best conditions with Lisinac and Giannelli suffering for physical problems; the race in this event ends in the semifinals against Civitanova at the tie break.
Then Itas Trentino focus on SuperLega and CEV Cup, earning the second place in the rank at the end of the regular season and gaining the qualification for the Final of the continental event for the third time in the last five years. This time the only trophy that was still missing did not escape the Golden Set, as had already happened on previous occasions. After the victories against Lausanne in the round of 32, Haching in round of 16, Amriswil in the quarter-finals, Olympiacos in the semifinals, the yellow-blue team defeat the Turks of Galatasaray with a quite easy 3-0 in Trento and a more difficult 3-2 in Istanbul on March 26th. In this case it is Kovacevic who take the team to the recovery (from 0-2 to 3-2) which interrupts the curse related to the CEV Cup.
After the second trophy conquered in the "beautiful season", Giannelli and his companions focus on Play Off Scudetto but to defeat Padova in the quarter-finals they need three games (2-1), while in the semifinal against Lube the home defeat in game 1 at the tie-break reduce qualifying hopes. The elimination at the penultimate round don’t take value out a extraordinary year, in which Trentino Volley has maintained its international unbeaten record (15 victories in fifteen games played) and made also a record of 3-0 home wins (17 in total). The Yellow-Blue Club has opened a new cycle that, given the young age of all its players, promises to give satisfaction also for the future. |
