Trento, 06 April 2018

Match 3 of the series of Championship Play Offs Semifinal on Saturday in Umbria

Atanasijevic blocked by Eder and Lanza during match 2 (ph. Trabalza)

It is time again for Championship Play Offs Unipolsai 2018. Match 3 of semi-finals between Diatec Trentino and Sir Safety Conad Perugia will be played in the weekend; everything starts again from the 1-1 obtained after the first two matches. On Saturday April 7th the field factor will of course be in favour of the Umbri: the start of the match is scheduled for 6 p.m. at PalaEvangelisti, with tv broadcast on RAI Sport + HD and Radio Dolomiti.
HERE DIATEC TRENTINO After the CEV Champions League match of Wednesday in Civitanova, the yellow-blue team starts focusing again on its clash versus Perugia, with all the enthusiasm created by the victory in match 2 on Easter day.
The team reached Umbria already on Thursday night directly from Marche and is preparing live its second away match, which will play a fundamental role inside the series.
“This is an important match because who is gonna win will of course offer the opponent the 2-1 point in the series and then two chances in a row to qualify for the Final - confirmed coach Angelo Lorenzetti - . We have to face this date with the right focus, knowing that we will need a lot of spirit of self-sacrifice. The victory obtained at the tie-break in match 2 shouldn’t delude us; we know that there’s still a big gap between the two teams and we will have to do our best to fill it”.
The coach from Marche will verify the physical shape of the opposite Vettori during this afternoon’s training session and tomorrow’s one. The player didn’t play versus Cucina Lube due to a back contraction. The medical staff will try to recover him but nothing will be decided until the end; Renee Teppan is ready to take Vettori’s place, he acted as a protagonist in two of the three last played matches (including match 1 at PalaEvangelisti).
In this occasion the setter Giannelli will achieve its 190th official played matches with the kit of Trentino Volley on, entering the top ten of the most-present players in the history of the club. Simone will in fact overcome Solè, which arrived at 189, and will aim for Zygadlo’s record (191) and Stokr’s one (192). Birarelli and the former Colaci remain at the top of this ranking (345), whereas the most present player in the actual team is Lanza (297 on Saturday).
SIX VICTORIES AND A DEFEAT IN THE PREVIOUS MATCHES 3 OF SEMI-FINALS Trentino Volley has already played seven times (on sixteen participations) a match 3 of Championship Play Offs semi-finals, obtaining six victories and only one defeat. The victories are dated back to the 3-1 in the series of 2006 versus Treviso, to the 3-1 in the series of 2009 versus Cuneo, to the 3-0 in the series of 2011 versus Modena, to the 3-2 in the series of 2015 versus the same Perugia, to the 3-1 versus Modena in 2016 and to the 3-1 obtained in the home victory again versus the Umbri of last season; the only one ko is related to the home 0-3 match versus Lube in the series of 2010. For what concerns numbers, the one of Sunday will be the 45th seasonal match for the yellow-blues (27 victories and 17 defeats), the 760th official match in the history of the Club, the 109th match in Championship Play Offs, with 66 overall victories, 22 of which (on 51 played matches) obtained in away matches.
THE OPPONENTS Sir Safety Conad Perugia is waiting for Diatec Trentino at PalaEvangelisti after having got acquainted again, already on Wednesday evening, with the victory in a home match. In the going match of Play Offs 6 of Champions League, played on Wednesday evening in front of their public, the Umbri have in fact obtained a 3-1 versus the Russians of Lokomotiv Novosibirsk, a big step towards the Final Four in Kazan. The Black Devils will try to make the best of the field factor in this circumstance as well, after 21 victories in the 22 official matches played at home during this season, and of the positive home tradition in the Championship Play Offs versus Trento (which was always defeat in five previous matches). Match 2 has also shown as Bernardi is able to count of the full recover of Russell, used in the starting six for a big part of the match and as a protagonist in Champions League.
THE BACKGROUND On Saturday the twenty-seventh match between the two Clubs will be played, the tenth in the last twelve months. Perugia won five of the six seasonal previous matches, but Trentino Volley is still ahead in the clash for 15-11. The hosting team conquered seven of the ten overall matches at PalaEvangelisti and doesn’t lose from October 26th 2014 (2-3), counting on six won matches in a row.
THE SERIES The semifinals, like the final, is played on five matches. On 1-1 after the win in PalaEvangelisti on March 29th 3-1 for Perugia and in BLM Group Arena 3-2 for Diatec Trentino on Easter Day, the two teams will automatically play game 4, scheduled on Sunday April 15th at 6pm in Trento. Match 5, if required, will take place on Wednesday 18th or Thursday 19 April at 8:30pm in Perugia. The team that wins the semifinals will face the winning team of the other semifinal, Civitanova-Modena (series on 1-1, game 3 on Sunday in Marche). 
REFEREES First referee of the match will be Fabrizio Pasquali, from Ascoli Piceno, and Omero Satanassi as second, from Ravenna. Pasquali, official referee since 1997 and international referee since 2001, it’s the eighteenth match in SuperLega this season; two matches were with Trentino Volley: a 3-2 home win against Modena on December 3rd and an away win on February 7th, 3-1, in Latina. Satanassi, serie A referee  since 1996 and international since 2005, will whistle his sixteenth match, four of which with Trento: four home wins (3-0 on Monza, 3-0 on Padova, 0-3 against Perugia and 3-0 on Sora.
TV, RADIO AND INTERNET Game 3 will attract global interest with live coverage on all media. RAI Sport + HD will broadcast the match live, both on sat or normal tv (57 in HD, 58 in sd, Sky sat 227, with commentary from Marco Fantasia and Claudio Galli), at www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raisport/multimedia/diretta.html, the live streaming with audio and video. Abroad twenty six nations will be watching thanks to the live broadcast of Band Sports, Sportsklub, Sportsklub Poland, Dowaly/Kuwait Sport, Sportmax Caraibi, Telesports, Ote, Saran and Img. As usual, the official radio partner Radio Dolomiti will cover interely and live the full match starting at 5:55pm. All the frequencies are available on the Trentino Volley homepage as well as on www.radiodolomiti.com, with the “On Air” direct section.
On tv, RTTR, tv partner of Trentino Volley, will stream a replica of the match on Monday April 9th at 9:50pm.
On the internet live updates will be available on the Lega Pallavolo Serie A website (www.legavolley.it) and on www.trentinovolley.it, as well as on other Yellow-blues social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook e www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office