Istanbul (Turkey), 26 March 2019

Galatasaray-Trentino Itas 2-3, the match report

Match report. Trentino Itas reached the Burhan Felek Voleybol Salonu of Istanbul with Lisinac too; the Serbian middle hitter sits on the bench, because the coach Lorenzetti prefers not to risk and he confirms the starting six of the going round: Giannelli as the setter, Vettori the opposite hitter, Kovacevic and Russell in area 4, Codarin and Candellaro as the middle hitters and Grebennikov as the libero. Galatasaray roster is composed by Keskin the setter, Venno as the opposite hitter, Antonov and Aydin the spikers, Duff and Gok as the middle hitters and Cakir the libero. At the beginning of the match the opponents have the control, with Aydin and Venno at the service they show immediately their determination (1-5). Gok blocks Kovacevic reaching 3-8 and forces Lorenzetti to ask for a time out. As the match resumes Trento tries to react with Russell’s block on Venno (7-10)and with Giannelli’s ace on Antonov (11-13), but Aaron’s mistake in the central part of the set created a gap (13-17) that increases even more after Duff’s block on Codatin (15-21). The end of the match still favourites the opponents (18-22, 20-24), Trentino Itas avoids two set balls but not the third one (22-25 thanks to Venno’s attack). The situation seems to change at the beginning of the second set (3-1), but it eventually turns out to be the same as the previous set, Antonov and Venno are out of control and reach fast 5-5, just to increase the gap later on (7-10, 10-13). Lorenzetti throws Nelli and Van Garderen in the middle for Vettori and Russell, but Galatasaray keeps its pace and remains ahead (13-16), before speeding up again with Gok’s round of service (16-22). Trento climbs back up to 21-24, then Venno attacks again (21-25). The World Champions try to react during the third set, encouraged by Nelli’s attacks and services (confirmed captain on court), immediately obtain a promising advantage (5-3, 9-5). Trento keeps its advantage close in the middle part (13-8, 15-9, 18-13), Galatasaray alternates many attacks but doesn’t manage to be effective anymore. Trentino Itas dominates (23-15) and quickly closes the match with another point from Nelli (25-16) moving to 1-2. Trentino Itas is more and more convinced of its skills and starts again with a boost also in the fourth set, where it immediately takes the lead in the game with Nelli and Kovacevic still uncontrolled (5-2, 8-3, 11-3) and a block that stops anything that passes above the net. The Turkish players quit under every point of view (13-3) making room to Trentino Itas (19-8) that gets to 25-16: the pipe that awards the 2019 CEV Cup to Trento is from Uros Kovacevic. The tie break follows the two previous sets: there is only Trentino Itas (6-0, 11-14) and then 15-5. “I think that the experience of the final match lost in Tours in 2017 has been very useful during the toughest moment of today’s match – commented the coach of Trentino Itas Angelo Lorenzetti at the end of the Final -. On that occasion we were disunited while facing the difficulties, while this time we were able to react as a rea team, taking into consideration that in the first two sets we put effort to go down in that way, not using the many possibilities of break point. This victory is important in many aspects; for sure, we’re not talking about the Champions League but in the last years obtaining this trophy has never been easy and now we hold on to it”. Trentino Itas will be back in Trento on Wednesday in the late afternoon and starting from Thursday evening it will start to prepare the debut in the Play Off Scudetto Credem Banca 2019 that will take place on Sunday 31st March at 6.00 p.m. at the BLM Group Arena against Kioene Padova for the first match of quarterfinals (included in the membership).

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office