Trento, 11 December 2019
CEV Champions League 2020 on Thursday: the guide of Trentino Itas-Fenerbahce Istanbul
CEV Champions League 2020 on Thursday, December 12: the second round of the leg phase in the continental club will be played by Trentino volley after a season off - and after being forced to postpone the first day to the end of January. During their debut, the Gialloblù will face the Turkey Champions of Fenerbahce HDI Sigorta Instanbul in the Pool A. The match will start at 8:30 p.m. and will be transmitted live on Radio Dolomiti and DAZN.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO After eight months since the victory of the CEV Cup 2019, the Via Trener Company will play again on an international field, versus the Istanbul roster. “We will travel along our path in a match we care a lot about: we must play with all our energies, because we really wanted to play it - said the coach Angelo Lorenzetti - . “We know that we are going to face determined and organized rivals: the Fenerbahce is an experienced and skilled team. They are quick, and because of that, when they receive near the net it is difficult for us understand how to do a good block. But we want to start well, and our behaviour on the field must be in line with the things we have always spoken about, starting from the season’s beginning”.
On the match there will be all Gialloblù players, who will train this morning (and on Thursday morning too) to prepare themselves for the match. Three players are going to play in the CEV Champions League for the first time: Codarin, Daldello and Sosa Sierra.
KOVACEVIC AND HIS HUNDREDTH MATCH On this occasion Uros Kovacevic will play his hundredth match with the Itas Trentino Company, but he is actually just the fourth player of the current roster who reached this result. Giannelli played in 245 matches, Djuric 138, and Vettori 109. In the last 99 matches (42 in the 2017-2018 season, 47 in 2018-2019 and 10 in the current one), Uros reached 1.380 points (572 in the 2017-2018 season, 686 in 2018-2019 and 122 in 2019-2020). He is at the ninth place among the best “all time” Itas Trentino pointscorers.
TRENTINO VOLLEY HISTORY IN THE EUROPEAN CUPS On Thursday there will be the ninth Trentino Volley participation at the CEV Champions League, the 14th one on European field. Let’s talk about Itas Trentino history: It won in 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions, got the third place in 2012, played in the Playoffs 12 in 2013, Playoff 6 in 2015 and 2018, and got the second place in 2016. Itas Trentino played in the 2004-2005 season in the Top Teams Cup, but lost the game: it had been scratched by the Dutch Ortec Nesselande Rotterdam during the preliminary phase, played at PalaTrento. In the CEV Cup lost the two finals in the golden set (in 2015 versus Moskva, and 2017 against Tours). The matches played by Trentino Volley in the European cups are 124 in total, with 100 victories. For what concerns the CEV Champions League the situation is even better, considering that they won 66 matches out of 84. The debuts have always been a reason to celebrate for the players: 3-0 at Bled on November 4, 2008; 3-2 in Athens on December 2, 2009; 3-2 in Fredrichshafen November 17, 2010; 3-0 at Teruel October 20, 2011; 3-0 at the Stella Rossa Belgrad on Ocotber 25, 2012; 3-1 in Berlin on October 24, 2013; 3-0 at the Maaseik on November 5, 2015, and finally 3-1 in Belgium on December 5, 2017.
AFTER 616 DAYS, AT THE BLM GROUP ARENA THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE IS AGAIN ON THE SCENE After 616 days of await, in this occasion the BLM Group Arena will host again a CEV Champions League match. The most recent match had been played on April 12 2018, during the final quarters against Civitanova. They lost during the tiebreak. Trentino Volley will play its 158th European home-match, the 38th one in Champions League, where they won 34th times. The most recent continental match has been played in March 26 2019: 3-0 on the Galatasary in the final CEV Cup 2019 match.
THE OPPONENTS Because of their loss last time, the Fenerbahnce arrived in Trento absolutely determined to win. The Istanbul club participate to the CEV Champions League for the eight time; the club is the most important sport centre in the Country with millions of fans in all over the world. The club gained this title thanks to the double whammy (Championship and National Cup) obtained in the last season. In the roster (whose technician is Sordyl) some players are already internationally known, like the French central hitter Rossard, the Dutch opponent Ter Maat, the central hitter Batur and above all the Cuban Hidalgo Oliva, MVP of the last Turkish Championship. The only player of the current squad that faced Trentino Volley in the 2017 CEV Cup semi-final is the libero Karatas. The guests will play this match after winning Sunday evening's home match versus Arhavi which coincided with the ninth victory out of ten games played so far in the Turkish championship, led hand in hand with Galatasaray (26 points). Fenerbahce HDI Sigorta Istanbul roster: 1. Ulas Kiyak (S), 2. Wouter Ter Maat (OPP), 4. Ahmetecan Buyuguz (OH), 5. Ogulcan Yatgin (S), 8. Izzet Unver (OH), 9. Rossard Thibault (OH), 10. Emre Batur (MB), 12. Kelvin Nwachukwu Arinze (OPP), 13. Salvador Hidalgo Oliva (OH), 14. Hasan Sikar (MB), 15. Oguzhan Karasu (MB), 16. Ferhat Akdeniz (MB), 17. Caner Dengin (L), 18. Ahmet Karatas (L), 19. Jozef Stanicki Bora (OH). Coach Mariusz Sordyl.
FORMAT The match opens our team's group stage of the 2020 CEV Champions League; after the first three preliminary rounds, the tournament moves into its main phase, dividing the twenty participating teams into five pools of four teams each, where they will face each other in an Italian-style group with home and away matches. In the Main Phase there is the Italian system of allocation of points in the standings, but the first discriminating factor is the number of wins. At the end of this phase (the last game is scheduled for February 19th, 2020) the first classified of each Pool and the three best second-placed teams will enter the quarter-finals, which will be characterized by direct clashes with home and away matches. The Final will be played on 17th May 2020 on a neutral field. In the same Pool, on Thursday in the Czech Republic the match between the hosts of Ceske Budejovice and Cucine Lube Civitanova is also played (against which Trento will play the match of the first round postponed on 26th January).
PREVIOUS MEETINGS This Thursday's match will be the third match between these two clubs, previously faced only in the double semi-final round of the 2017 CEV Cup that made Trentino Volley go through in the competition. The face-off outcome is equal, because our team won the first leg at home on March 28th, 2017 in just three sets (scores: 25-16, 25-12, 25-23) and lost only at the tie break (scores: 25-20, 22-25, 29-27, 19-25, 15-6) in Istanbul the second leg played on April 1st, 2017. Against Turkish teams, Trentino Volley has a total of eleven previous matches, also taking into account the five games played against Izmir (all won), the two against Halkbank Ankara (both lost) and the two against Galatasaray (both won): the overall face-off outcome is nine wins and two losses.
REFEREES: The match will be refereed by the Hungarian Laszlo Adler, first referee in Budapest, and the Romanian Lucian-Vasile Nastase (from Galati). Both have directed previous Trentino Volley matches; Adler directed Dinamo Mosca-Trento 1-3 on April 11, 2015 (CEV Cup final lost at the golden set), while Nastase arbitrated Kedzierzyn-Kozle-Trento 3-2 on December 20, 2017, the second match of the group stage of the last Trentino Volley experience in the CEV Champions League.
RADIO AND INTERNET COVERAGE: The match will be broadcast live by Radio Dolomiti, partner broadcaster of Trentino Volley, starting at about 8:25 pm. All the frequencies for listening to the regional network are available on the website www.radiodolomiti.com, where you can also listen to the radio commentary in streaming, by accessing the "On Air" section.
You can follow the match on DAZN, a live streaming and on-demand platform available on a wide range of Internet-connected devices, including Smart TVs, PCs, smartphones, tablets and game consoles. DAZN requires registration and offers the first month of free trial; for each account, you can associate up to six devices, two of which can be used simultaneously.
To follow the point to point updates of the match you can instead consult the official website of the CEV at http://cevlive.cev.eu/DV_LiveScore.aspx?ID=37539, which will provide the live score, or that of Trentino Volley www.trentinovolley.it which will also offer the set by set report a few minutes after the conclusion of each partial. We will always keep you up to date through our social media (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
TICKETS, MERCHANDISING AND "ITAS DAY": The match is included in the subscription. Ticket pre-sale is active until 5pm on Thursday at the HQ of Trentino Volley in via Trener 2, at the Promoevent premises, in via Suffragio 10 in Trento, and at any time on the internet by clicking on www.vivaticket.it/ita/event/trentino-itas-fenerbahce-istanbul/144262. The BLM Group Arena ticket offices will be available from 7.30 p.m., exactly when the entrances to the building will be opened.
Behind the long stand on the north side, fans will find at their disposal our merchandising point; on sale a wide range of Trentino Volley items.
At BLM Group Arena on this occasion will be staged the first "Itas Day" of the season, the historic main sponsor of our club will distribute a gadget at the entrance to support the team in an even more choreographic way, and also, immediately after the greeting subnet at the beginning of the match, the players of Trentino Itas will throw their official jerseys to the fans. Itas Mutua has also been awarded the prize reserved for the MVP of the match, chosen thanks to the votes of journalists present in the press box: a cheque of 500 euros that will be donated to the social enterprise ABC Irifor, which for years has been dealing with sensory disabilities (deafness and blindness).
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