The determination of Massimo Colaci – the yellow-blue libero from Puglia
ph. Trabalza
Trento, 3rd December 2016
On Sunday 4th December all teams will play the thirteenth match of regular season SuperLega UnipolSai 2016/17 (last match of the first half of the season) at the same time. Diatec Trentino will play at PalaPoli in Molfetta against the home team Exprivia at 6 pm. Live report on Radio Dolomiti and live streaming on Lega Volley Channel at www.sportube.tv.
HERE DIATEC TRENTINO The program of the championship will see Diatec Trentino play one of the most difficult away matches for the last day of the first half of the season, not only from a logistical point of view. The appointment in Puglia has become very hard in the last year, given that Trentino Volley has lost three times in the last four matches played in Molfetta. Diatec Trentino will have to try to forget the difficulties of the recent past at PalaPoli to keep hoping for getting the winter title; in order to get it the Yellow-Blues need to win in four sets maximum while the leading team Civitanova has to lose for 0-3 at PalaPanini, or they need to win for 3-0 and Lube has to lose at the tie breaker against Modena.
“Our aim is always to do something more than we’ve already achieved – explains trainer Angelo Lorenzetti -. It’s good that we have finished the first half of the season among the top four teams of the league; this place will allow us to have direct access to the quarter-finals of Coppa Italia, but we want to take our chances to get the first place in the ranking list or to keep the second place. In Molfetta we will play a different match than last Sunday in Monza; it will be a more physical match and we need to be good at not distorting our characteristics of game but at improving our quality of service and defense”.
The team will leave for Puglia this morning and will return to Trento on Sunday night, after the end of the match. Also this time the trainer from the Marches has a wide choice of players for the starting six, with the former Daniele Mazzone (he played in Molfetta for the season 2013/14) who could be confirmed another time as middle blocker.
At PalaPoli, where the players will complete the traditional training before the match, Diatec Trentino will play its 20th official match of the season, the 679th match of its history and the 370th away match winning 231 times.
COPPA ITALIA, THE GRID FOR THE LAST SIXTEEN TEAMS WILL BE DEFINED ON SUNDAY EVENING The last round of the first half of regular season will define the matches between the last sixteen teams in Del Monte Coppa Italia. To take part in the first knockout round (scheduled on December 14th and 15th) of the maximum national trophy will be the teams classified between the fifth and twelfth place, while the first four (Civitanova, Trento, Modena and Perugia, in a yet to be defined order) are already automatically qualified to the quarter-finals, which will be played on January 11th and 12th 20167.
None of the teams is already sure about its finishing position, which is why only on Sunday evening, when all the matches will be concluded, will be possible to know who will be the next opponent for Lanza and his teammates.
The amount of combinations of results in the last round are so numerous as to allow any possibility; Diatec Trentino, which is currently second in the ranking with two points behind Lube and with a point more than Modena, will go for a success in Puglia trying to surpass the same team from Marche but also to protect its position in the ranking. Very important will be in fact the direct match between the first and the third teams in the ranking.
THE OPPONENTS After three defeats in their last four league matches (the last two in a row versus Monza and Civitanova), which has made Exprivia Molfetta fall to the third to last position, the team from Puglia seeks his own redemption against the opponents who has faced the greatest number of times in the maximum championship.
The goal of the team coached again by Flavio Gulinelli (who has replaced last coach Di Pinto during the current season) for the weekend is to start again with new personality and to secure its qualification for the knockout round of Coppa Italia, which is only guaranteed at the end of the first part of the season to the first twelve classified teams.
To succeeds in its goal, Exprivia Molfetta will have to watch its back from Latina and Milano (which are last in the ranking with only two less points) and once again mainly rely on its opposite.
After coming back in summer after two seasons in Civitanova, Giulio Sabbi has in fact quickly become again Molfetta's attack landmark and is currently the top scorer of the tournament with 272 points in 12 matches; together with the Brazilian setter Tiaguinho he forms an extraordinary duo on which depend many of the fortunes of the red and white team.
Compared to last season, the only two players of the original starting six who are still in the team are the libero De Pandis and the spiker Joao Rafael, support by the other spiker Olteanu.
In the middle of the net are two young players of great interest as Vitelli and Polo, who comes from the yellow-blue academy where he won two consecutive league titles in 2014 (Junior League and U19) and who Trentino Volley gave on a loan in SuperLega for the second consecutive year, after the experience lived in Ravenna.
At PalaPoli, Molfetta gained seven of the eleven points which now has in the ranking, winning with Modena and Sora and forcing Piacenza to the tie-break
THE PRECEDENTS On Sunday these two teams will face one another for the 16th time; half of the match in which they have played against each other are related to the current solar year, considering that only in 2016 Trento and Molfetta have challenged each other in the quarter-finals of Coppa Italia 2016, in the second half of the 2015/16 regular season and in five quarter-finals matches of Playoff Scudetto 2016 (a series that ended 3-2 in favour of the team from Trento). In general, Trentino Volley won more (10-5), but in Puglia Diatec Trentino lost the last three of four played games. The most recent success in Molfetta dates back to 22nd December 2016 (3-0 in the first half of the quarter-finals of Coppa Italia); subsequently Diatec trentino was beaten in away matches (3-0 on 13th March, 1-3 on 27th March). The most recent match took place at PalaTrento on 3rd April (3-1 in the 5th match of the quarter-finals of Playoff). In seven previous games at PalaPoli, Trento won on three occasions.
THE REFEREES The match will be refereed by Giorgio Gnani (from Ferrara, in Serie A since 1997 and international since 2009) and Ilaria Vagni (from Perugi, tenured referee since 2003 and international since 2014). The two referees will work together for the first time in a match of Superlega UnipolSai 2016/17, the fifth for Gnani (the last precedent on October 27th, Trento’s success against Latina 3-0). For Vagni this is the sixth: she has refereed Diatec Trentino on the occasion of the victory at PalaTrento 3-0 against Milano (on 6th November).
RADIO, INTERNET, TV The match will be reported by whole live coverage by Radio Dolomiti, network partner of Trentino Volley. The connections with Molfetta will take place in “Campioni di Sport”, the Sunday sport program of the broadcaster of via Missioni Africane. The useful frequencies to listen to the regional network are available on the home page of www.trentinovolley.it, while on the website www.radiodolomiti.com supporters can listen to the live streaming radio reportage.
There will be also a live report in video streaming on the web space “Lega Volley Channel”, on the website www.sportube.tv/volley; service charges will apply. On tv the deferred coverage will be broadcasted on December Monday 5th from 9.30 p.m. on RTTR, partner tv of the sport club of via Trener. On the internet, constant updates on the website of Lega Pallavolo serie A (www.legavolley.it) and on www.trentinovolley.it. Yellow-blue social networks will provide regular updates too (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook e www.trentinovolley.it/twitter.
Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office
SuperLega UnipolSai 2016/17, standing and game day 13 schedule
