Trento, 28 March 2018

On Thursday in Perugia (8:30pm) 2018 Play Off Scudetto Semifinals starts

Simone Giannelli and Simone Anzani on the net (ph. Trabalza)

The 2018 UnipolSai Play Off Scudetto get underway. As during the 2017 season, Diatec Trentino is going to face Sir Safety Conad Perugia, best ranked team of the regular season, in a five matches challenge, with Perugia benefitting from the home court advantage in the eventual tie-breaker match. Match 1 is scheduled on Thursday March 29th at PalaEvangelisti in Perugia at 8:30 pm, live on RAI Sport + HD and on Radio Dolomiti.
HERE DIATEC TRENTINOAfter reaching the second to last step of the tournament table thanks to a great 3-0 win on Verona last Saturday, Yellow-blues are approaching the Scudetto Semifinals with the clear purpose of trying to stop the favourite team for the final victory.
Still being in the top four clubs of SuperLega seemed like a ???? half way during the regular season; still our players managed to reach this goal and totally deserved it - said Angelo Lorenzetti presenting the match -. Perugia so far proved to be a better team than us, we will have to elaborate our game and try to force them to lower their usual percentages in all the fundamentals and nurture the dream of the final. It’s fundamental that we manage our feelings especially in the games at PalaEvangelisti”.
The Trentino’s coach can rely on all the thirteen players of the roster as they all trained regularly this morning before leaving for Perugia, where they will have a last training session on Thursday morning.
Game 1 of the semifinals will be the 42nd match of the season for Trentino Volley, the 757th official match of its history. Six players (Cavuto, Eder, Hoag, Kozamernik, Teppan and Zingel) are at their debut in Play Off Semifinals in the italian league, while Lanza is the most capped player (15 matches in 5 semifinal series).
ELEVENTH SCUDETTO SEMIFINAL FOR TRENTINO VOLLEY In sixteen participations to the Play Off Scudetto Trentino Volley reached the Semifinals eleven times, including the edition that starts today, ten of which during the last ten years. Eight times the team qualified for the Final: the two negative precedents date back to the first semifinals ever, season 2005/2006 against Sisley Treviso (1-3 series) and the second to last, in 2015/2016, when Trento surrendered 1-3 against Modena, which later won the title. In every series Trentino Volley won at least one match, eight times won the first.
The Yellow-blue club played so far 106 games in the Play Off, winning 65 matches (22 away matches) and losing 41 (28 away). The most capped player in this part of the season is Emanuele Birarelli, who reached 60 caps during the 2014/15 season, while Filippo Lanza is the most capped actual player with 44 caps.
THE OPPONENT Sir Safety Conad Perugia is at its sixth participation in the Scudetto Play Off but this time they arrive to the final steps of the competition with huge pression as they’re considered the favourite for the final victory. The team coached by former Trentino Volley player Lorenzo Bernardi has already won two national trophies this season (Supercoppa and Coppa Italia), but moreover, indicating it as the team to beat, Perugia won the regular season with twenty three wins and a six points gap over last year Italian Champion, Cucine Lube Civitanova.  Last year their race for championship stopped in semifinals after a five match series against Trento; this time the team from Perugia will have the home court advantage in the eventual game 5 in order to try to access the their third final ever. To do so they will rely on a roster with hardly no weaknesses, counting on high level second-string players, as lately Berger, the austrian wing spiker, proved replacing Russell.
THE BACKGROUND On Tuesday the twenty-fifth direct match between the two Companies will be played. The challenge started slightly late (the first overall match is dated back to November 7^th 2011), but gave life to very important moments; in the past are in fact two other Championship semi-finals (2015 and 2017) and a semi-final of Supercoppa 2017. Perugia won in only two occasions, referring to this season, in all other cases Trento, which won 14 matches and lost 10, obtained a victory. During the last twelve months the two teams played versus each other nine times, including the four referred to this season, in which Sir Safety Conad let only one set to the opponents. The last previous match in Umbria is dated back to November 2017, 3-0 home victory with very hard fought sets (25-21, 26-24, 30-28).
THE SERIES The semi-finals, as well with the Final, will be played with the “best-of-five” formula. The series could then eventually last a maximum of three weeks, because of the Champions League matches of three of the four teams that participate to it: after match 1 of Thursday, the team will move to Trento for match 2, which is scheduled for Sunday April 1st at 6 p.m. at BLM Group Arena, whereas match 3 will be instead scheduled again for Saturday 7th or Sunday April 8th in Umbria. The eventual matches 4 and 5 will be played, in case there will be need, on Sunday April 15th in Trentino (6 p.m.) and Wednesday 18th or Thursday April 19th at 8.30 again at PalaEvangelisti. Who will be able to pass the turn, will find in the Final match the winning team between Civitanova and Modena, a series that starts tonight in Marche already (8.30 p.m.).
THE REFEREES The match will be whistled by Daniele Rapisarda (first referee from Udine) and Mauro Goitre (second referee from Torino). For Rapisarda, which has been whistling since 2002, this will be the eighteenth seasonal match in SuperLega; three of this eighteen matches are referred to Trentino Volley: home 3-1 victory versus Monza on December 26th, away tie-break victory in Modena on February 18th and 3-2 victory at BLM Group Arena on March 11th versus Verona. For Goitre, who has been in Serie A since 2008 and International since 2016, this will be instead the seventeenth seasonal match; three of these seventeen matches saw Trento as a protagonist: three-sets defeat in Civitanova (November 1st), tie-break victory in Busto Arsizio (December 30th) and home defeat right versus Perugia (0-3) on February 4th.
TV, RADIO AND INTERNET Match 1 will be a mediatic global event, since it will be live broadcast on tv, radio and the Internet. It will be broadcast in fact by RAI Sport + HD, a channel present both on the digital platform (channel 57 in HD, 58 in sd) and on the satellite one of Sky on channel 227, with live commentary by Maurizio Colantoni and Andrea Lucchetta; the pictures will be available on the Internet as well with a video-audio streaming by clicking at www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raisport/multimedia/diretta.html  and will count on an intercontinental visibility (26 nations will be linked) thanks to the live broadcasts scheduled by Band Sports, Sportsklub, Sportsklub Poland, Dowaly, Kuwait Sport, Sportmax Caraibi, Telesports, Ote, Saran and Img.
It is scheduled, as always happened, a live commentary on Radio Dolomiti, radio partner of Trentino Volley, starting from 8.25 p.m.. All the frequencies to listen to the regional network are available on the home page of the Company site, www.trentinovolley.it, whereas on www.radiodolomiti.com will be also possible to listen to the live commentary in streaming, accessing to the “On Air” section.
The deferred match will be on the tv on Friday March 30th at 10 p.m. on RTTR – tv partner of Trentino Volley.
Lastly, on the Internet, point-point updates will be performed by the site of Lega Pallavolo Serie A (www.legavolley.it) and by www.trentinovolley.it itself and will be always active on the yellow-blue Social Networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office