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The twentieth season signs the opening of a new cycle for Trentino Volley, not only for the sport but also for the society. After almost touching the victory of Champions League in Verona, the President Mosna decides to leave the players and to take a step back, leaving on October 20th the presidency of the Club, which is taken by General Manager Bruno Da Re with the task of making a synthesis to a group of local entrepreneurs, who have taken over the shares of the founder of Trentino Volley.
Before the historic farewell of the President of the yellow-blue team, we must describe a quite intense summer market, where Gianelli, Lucarelli, Kooy, Nimir and Rossini’s excellent starts (respectively given by Perugia, Civitano, Belchatow and Modena) are compensated by the suggestive return of Matey Kaziyski (who comes back to wear the legendary T-shirt with the number 1, saved only for him by the Club) and by the arrival in Trento of lots of young people with beautiful hopes. Two of this players are recent winners of the European Championship with the Italian T-shirt such as the setter Sbertoli (taken from Milan) and the wing spiker Lavia (from Modena), great protagonists of the Italian triumph together with Michieletto, who after a summer as Top Player characterized also by the Olympics and the World Championship U21, becomes the unmovable regular in place 4. From Germany arrives the new libero, the ex Berlin Zenger, who is perfect for the green line imposed by Lorenzetti and Da Re for this year.
The seasonal start makes us immediately understand that the path chosen will be full of satisfaction. Between October 23rd and 24th, with only two days of the championship behind, the Final Four of Supercoppa starts, which, to our surprise, is won by Itas Trentino, who is able to win against Perugia in the semifinal for 3-0 and against Monza in final for 3-1. The nineteenth title of Trentino Volley’s history goes in the showcase unexpected but absolutely deserved, with Kaziyski that raises, as captain (grade that the Society strongly wanted to give him) and mvp, the trophy, declaring that the year of Trentino Volley will not be a year of a supporting team as the unauthorized personal had foreseen at the eve of the match.
The euphoria guaranteed by the victory of the first seasonal competition immediately pushes Itas Trentino into the noble part of the ranking of SuperLega and consistently among the top three. A position that it will never abandon during the entire regular season and further legitimized by the home victories with Civitanova and Perugia (eventually finishing at the top of the ranking) and by the full result, with which Podrascanin and his teammates regulate the first team in pursuit Monza, Piacenza and Milan. In December Trento also begins its eleventh participation in Champions League (which will once again be very long and full of satisfactions) and flies to Brazil to compete in the Club World Cup, thanks to the second European place achieved in the previous season. The world champion adventure in Betim finishes on the podium for the eighth time in nine appearances, thanks to the third place immediately achieved behind the host teams of Sada Cruzeiro and Civitanova, with whom the yellow-blue team have given life to a spectacular derby in the semifinal, finished only with 19-21 at the tie break for the team of the Marche.
After returning to Italy, Itas Trentino continues to amaze, tackling all the appointments between the championship, Champions League and the Italian Cup with great attitude. Between January and February, Lorenzetti's team qualifies for the quarter-finals of the continental competition and gets the pass to the Final Four of the highest national trophy thanks to the victory in the quarter-finals over Monza. The secret of the far from expected results lies in the strength of the team but must also be sought in the tactical module chosen by the team’s trainer, which exploits the malleability of the high ball trio Kaziyski-Michieletto-Lavia to propose a set-up without true opposite spiker, a role that covers the Calabrian hammer with great profit. Daniele is one of the main protagonists of the semi-final of the Coppa Italia, which he clearly won against Milan at the Unipol Arena in Bologna. Five years after last time, Itas Trentino returns to play in the Final, where they bow 1-3 to the super favourite Perugia.
The confrontation with the Umbrian team does not finish with this appointment, as Sbertoli and his teammates overtake Berlin in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and find Sir Safety in the semifinals, as happened a year before. And as in the previous edition, they eliminated the team, winning the first round at PalaBarton 3-2 and then also assuring the golden set after the return match. One year later, Trentino Itas is back in the Champions League Final, where they will again find Kedzierzyn-Kozle competing for the trophy in the decisive match in Ljubljana.
Before that match, however, the course in SuperLega has to be completed. The euphoria guaranteed by the passage of the round in the European field also affects the Italian Play-Off, where Trento overcomes Piacenza in the quarter-finals in three matches and then flies to 2-0 in the Semifinal series at the best of five matches with Civitanova thanks to a double 3-0 success. Cucine Lube, however, is never really tame and, in the most difficult moment, finds the mental, technical and competitive forces to reverse the situation and eliminate Kaziyski and his teammates, only 3-2 in game 5. Subsequently the team will obtain the victory of his seventh championship by liquidating Perugia in four games.
Itas Trentino must say goodbye to the tricolour dreams and can return to focus on the Champions League, but the long period of three weeks without official matches that awaits them before supporting the SuperFinal in Slovenia will affect the preparation of Lorenzetti's team, as happened twelve months before. On 22 May at the Arena Stozice the team took two sets before actually getting into the action and the Polish team of Kedzierzyn-Kozle allows nothing, closing the contest 3-0 in their favour. For the second consecutive year, Trentino Volley ends its season with the European silver medal but, compared to the previous one in Verona, the result is a result that leaves smiles on the faces of the players, coaches and managers.
Trentino Volley in fact archives the season with an extra title for its palmares (the Supercoppa), a total of three Finals played (out of five competitions played) and the constant ability to be the protagonist till the end in any situation. The group is cohesive, mostly calm young people on the launching pad, and with still untapped potential. The twenty-second year of the company's history finishes as one of the most important ever: the path to live and give great emotions to the Trentino viewers (who flocked to the building as soon as the anti-Covid restrictions were reduced) was drawn. The future will once again be yellow-blue!
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