Simone Giannelli and Ivan Zaytsev on action at the net.
ph. Trabalza
Trento, 18th March 2017
On Sunday 19th March begin the semi-finals of Play Off Scudetto UnipolSai 2017. Diatec Trentino, top-seeded team number two of the board, will play against Sir Safety Conad Perugia, which came third in the regular season. The confrontation will be played with the best-of-five formula. The first match will take place at PalaTrento at 6.30 pm: live on Radio Dolomiti and live streaming on the Lega Volley Channel at www.sportube.tv.
Here Diatec Trentino After getting the qualification to the semi-final of CEV Cup, the team can once again focus on the championship 2017, where it was able to pass the quarterfinal against Monza in just two matches. Lanza (at his 92nd match as Captain, only Kaziyski was better than him with 204 matches) and his team-mates arrive to this first appointment very motivated and with the conviction arising from the eight victories in a row between regular season, European cups and play off. Preserving the record of consecutive home wins, which has been lasting for eleven months, eighteen matches in a row, will be a further incentive for this difficult and high-level match.
“We are happy to be among the four teams that will play for the victory of the Italian title, also because at the beginning of the championship there was no guarantee that this would happen – explained trainer Angelo Lorenzetti during an interview of the last few days. In semi-final there are the teams that have most characterized the championship losing very few points. Perugia has played an important volleyball and, especially when it could rely on Atanasijevic, has played almost as well as Lube. We know the goals of Sir Safety Conad; in order to pass this round, we need to go further our level; we will often be under stress, especially in reception where during the regular season we had problems against the team from Umbria. The semi-final will be an important moment of our season, we need to enjoy every day’s life.”
The trainer has all fourteen players at his disposal and will chose the regular players only just before the beginning of the match. There are two training sessions before the match: today afternoon and the usual training before the beginning of the match tomorrow morning.
The match 1 of semi-final will be the forty-fifth seasonal match of Trentino Volley, the 704th official match in its history. Only for two players (Blasi and Chiappa) it will be the debut in a semi-final of play off scudetto; Colaci is instead the player with the highest number of participations in the semi-finals (16 matches in 5 series of semi-finals).
Tenth championship semi-final for Trentino Volley On Sunday begins the tenth semi-final of Play Off Scudetto aout of fifteen participations in the history of Trentino Volley, the ninth in the last ten years. The Club of via Trener got the qualification to the final seven times: the only negative precedents are the first semi-final ever in the season 2005/06 played against Sisley Treviso (defeat in four matches, 1-3) and the last one (season 2015/16, defeat for 1-3 against Modena, then Italian champion). In every series played, Trentino Volley has always won at least one match; in seven cases already in the first match.
Trento in the Play Off has played 95 matches so far, winning 60 times (22 away matches) and losing 35 times (23 away matches). The player who has played the highest number of matches with the yellow-blue team is one of the former players on the field on Sunday: Emanuele Birarelli, who reached number 60 presences in the season 2014/15 (21 only in the semi-finals of Play Off Scudetto).
RIVALS Already finalist in the last edition of Play Off Scudetto, when it lost in three matches in Modena, Sir Safety Conad Perugia will come to Trento for the first match of the semi-finals with the objective of trying to get the qualification to the final, as it happened twice in the last three editions. During the last season it was able to get the qualification against Lube although Lube could rely on three home matches out of five; a situation similar to this semi-final with Trentino Volley. The team of the former Bari, Birarelli and Della Lunga, in the quarterfinal has proved to be able to win also in the away matches, after getting the victory at PalaBanca of Piacenza. The hope of the team from Umbria will be the diagonal setter-opposite De Cecco-Atanasijevic. The Serbian player (out in the only seasonal precedent played at PalaTrento) has already been decisive in the return match played in Umbria in January (16 points with 68%) and together with Zaytsev forms a couple of great level. This couple plays in a system with the important experience of Podrascanin and of Birarelli and Bari and with the explosiveness of Russell who plays in place of Berger in this part of the season. The trainer of Perugia will participate in an Italian semi-final of Play Off Scudetto for the first time, precisely in his hometown Trento.
PRECEDENTS On Sunday the two teams will play the 16th direct match. The first match between the two Clubs was on November 7th 2011 and then there were significant matches: a Championship semifinal (2015 edition, the yellow-blue team won 2-1), a semifinal and a quarter of final of Coppa Italia (2015 and 2013 editions). In all the cases Trentino Volley won (balance sheet: 11-4). At PalaTrento, the home team won 7 of the 8 matches; the only away victory was on March 16th 2014 (1-3 in regulaar season). In this season Trentino won in four sets on October 29th (18-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-21) and Perugia won 3-0 on January 15th (25-23, 25-15, 25-22). Tomorrow's match is the first one in the Playoffs, but it isn't so for the cities: Trentino Volley confronted RPA-LuigiBacchi.it Perugia (not the club of Gino Sirci) in the quarters of final of the season 2003/04. Also in that case the yellow-blue team was in a better place in the ranking but they lost in four matches (1-3), due to the many injuries and for the quality of the rivals.
THE SERIES The semifinal, like the final, is a best-of-five series. The series will last more or less one month, due to the CEV Cup matches of Diatec Trentino: after the first match on Sunday, the teams will play the second one in Perugia on Saturday, March 25th at 6 p.m.. They will then play the third match at PalaTrento on Sunday, April 9th at 6 p.m. The eventual fourth and fifth matches, if necessary, will be played on Wednesday, April 19th in Umbria (8.30 p.m.) and then Saturday, April 22nd at 8.30 p.m. in Trentino. Who passes the turn, will confront in the final the winner of Civitanova-Modena, series that will start on Sunday at 5 p.m. in the Marche.
REFEREES The match will be directed by Omero Satanassi (first referee from Porto Fuori – Ravenna) and Giorgio Gnani, second referee from Ferrara. Satanassi is a referee since 1995 and this will be the 18th seasonal match in the SuperLega, two of which related to Trentino Volley: home victory (3-0) against Vibo Valentia on October 2nd and away victory (3-0) in Monza on February, 26th. Gnani directs in the SuperLega since 1997 and is an international referee since 2009. For him, this will be the 16th seasonal match, three of which related to Trentino Volley: home victory (3-0) against Latina on October 27th, victory at the tie break in Molfetta on December 4th and defeat in three sets in Perugia on January 15th.
RADIO, TV AND THE INTERNET There will be the live report on Radio Dolomiti, partner network of Trentino Volley. The connection with PalaTrento will be on “Campioni di Sport”, the sport channel of the broadcaster in via Missioni Africane. You can listen to the regional network on the home page www.trentinovolley.it and on www.radiodolomiti.com you can listento the live report of the match.
Also on Radio Rai 1, you can find updates of the match, with the voice of Manuela Colazzo, in connection with the PalaTrento for the transmission “Domenica Sport”.
The streaming video will be on the website of “Lega Volley Channel”, on www.sportube.tv/volley (payment service). On the tv, you can watch the whole match on Monday, March 20th at 9.30 p.m. on RTTR, tv partner of the Club.
On the Internet you can find the point-to-point updates on the website of the Lega Pallavolo Serie A (www.legavolley.it) and on www.trentinovolley.it and will be also available on the yellow-blue social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook e www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
TICKETS AND MERCHANDISING The pre-sale of the tickets is available until today at 5 p.m. at Trentino Volley Point in via Trener, until 7 p.m. at Promoevent offices, in via Suffragio 10 and anywhere on the Internet on http://www.vivaticket.it/ita/event/trentino-diatec-play-off-semifinale-gara-1/95504. The tickets will be available also on Sunday at the PalaTrento box offices, starting from 5 p.m, and 15 minutes later the PalaTrento will open the entrances. The ticket offices will be open until the end of the second set, after then you can't enter the PalaTrento to see the rest of the match. Inside, behind the tribuna nord, the supporters will find the merchandising point. There will be a lot of Trentino Volley items on sale.
Play Off Scudetto UnipolSai 2017, semifinal schedule
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