The complete roster of Zaksa Kedzierzyn-Kozle

Trento, March 13th, 2015

The qualification for the semifinals of the 2015 CEV Cup, apart from Wednesdays, ENERGY TI Diatec Trentino win 3-2, of the return leg in Belgium against team Knack , allowed the Trentino Volley to become one of the best four teams of the tournament. The second to last hurdle, after Novi Sad, Tel Aviv, Craiova and Roeselare, entering the final, was filled with perils.
In the fifth act of the board (which offered the only double challenges of roundtrip knockout ) the ENERGY TI Diatec Trentino will face the Poles of ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle, the team that has won tonights qualification, beating the Spaniards CAI Teruel team (double win, 3-0 and 3-1). Repeating this pattern four times previously in the CEV Champions League between 2012 and 2013 editions.
The dates of the two matches has already been set, what remains is formalizing the game schedules. The leg match will take place in Poland March 24th, 2015, four days after the return in PalaTrento (March 28th, probably at 8.30pm). As with the Quarter round, the Challenge Round advances the team obtaining the highest number of points in the rankings according to the two assigned games they played - as for the championship Super League - 3 points for a win by 3-0 and 3-1, two for a 3-2 win and 1 for the 2-3 defeat. The golden set (partial playoff to be played up to 15 at the end of the second match) will only be played in case of equal points.

The opponents of ENERGY TI Diatec Trentino
The Zaksa of Kedzierzy-Kozle team (a city of about sixty-five thousand inhabitants, belonging to the Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland) has for years been among the leading squadrons of the Polish volleyball, thanks to their title list which includes everything from five league titles (last won in 2003) and five National Cups (the most recent won last season) as well as a number of very prestigious rankings in the European field. The most significant is without a doubt the one recorded in the 2010/11 season, when they almost won the CEV Cup loosing the golden set, over two legs, of the final with Sisley Treviso. The Champions League yeilded the best result of their association, which was founded in 1947, with the third in the Final Four in 2003 that was played at the Assago Forum in Milan; last season they played the maximum continental tournament ending the experience in the group stage with a third place in Pool G. Their participation in the new CEV Cup was achieved due to their victory in the Polish Cup of 2014 (3-1 in the final on Jastrzebski Bernardi). In the championship, however, the title match, was abruptly haulted in the quarterfinals of the playoffs, at the hands of Belchatow.
Headed by Sebastian Swiderski (the former spiker of Perugia and Macerata, promoted to head coach for two seasons after having playing 2nd assistant in most games) is one of the many names familiar to the fans of the Italian volleyball: out of all the Dutch colonys’ ensamble the setter Abdel-Aziz (ex Cuneo and Treviso), which replaces Padovas’ former player, Zagumny (absent for a long period), the Spiker Kooy (former Modena and Macerata player) and the former duty Kay Van Dijk (played for Trento in the final months of last season), which participated a little in the field because of Witczaks’ presence. Completing the sextet is the Polish National world Champion, Zatorski (ex Belchatow), and the Brazilian spikers Loh and the two middle blockers Rejno and Wisnieski.
Trentino Volley had four official challenges in the group stage of the 2012 edition and 2013 Champions League. Statics favor the Yellow-Blues 3-1: the only success of Poles was reported with 2-3 in 14th of December 2011, in PalaTrento; then the Yellow-Blues achieved 3-0 on 22nd of December 2011, in Kedzierzyn-Kozle, and with the 3-0 home win on 14th of November 2012, to 3-1 in Poland after seven days.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office