Trento, 19 December 2020

SuperLega, on Sunday at BLM Group Arena last match of 2020

This weekend will be played round number 15 (match number 4 of second round) of SuperLega Credem Banca 2020/21. Also in this occasion, the match will be at the BLM Group Arena in Trento and Itas Trentino will play against Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza, this will be last match on home field. The starting whistle is scheduled for 6 pm: the match will be broadcast live on RAI Sport + and Radio Dolomiti.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO Thanks to the victory against Civitanova, last Monday, Itas has improved its position on the ranking and at the team is particularly enthusiastic. Giannelli and his fellow-players achieved the 6th consecutive victory and confirmed the growing-up abilities of the team during this season. The match against Piacenza (4th team on the ranking) will be another important occasion to proof the capacities”, said Angelo Lorenzetti while presenting the match. “During the first weeks of December we have re-gained confidence and a good pace of play: these factors allowed us to achieve important results. Now we have to show continuity, both about the way we play and our attitude - added Trentino Volley’s coach - . The match on Sunday will give us some important answers, indeed the opponent is different in comparison to the one that we have already defeated in 3 matches during the first round, and also the line-up is rich in surprises: Not only Baranowicz and Mousavi have been added to the team, but also Finger. If we want to defeat Gas Sales Bluenergy we’ll have to show a good determination and not give up as soon as the match will be difficult. This match can give us some important points for the ranking and we really need them, also considering that we’ll have to play 3 times on away field".
Itas Trentino, still can’t count on the hitter spiker Kooy (who’s been training for more than 3 weeks on his own trying to solve his problems at the abs), Alessandro Michieletto is confirmed to be part of the line-up.
For Trentino Volley, the match on Sunday will be official match number 21 of the season (6 victories and 4 defeats), match number 866 ever and the team will try to win for 316th time on home field and time 361 ever in regular season.
THE OPPONENTS  Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza is a team that has changed a lot lately: New players are now part of the team, such as Baranowicz, the Iranian middle blocker Mousavi and the Czech opposite Finger (as substitutes of Shaw - he changed team- and Grozer -who’s having health problems), so Itas will have to learn how to play against these new members of the team. The coach Lorenzo Bernardi can count on many players whose quality of play and capacities are among the best ones, very important factors for the team if we consider that Hierrezuelo can’t play due to some physical problems. This is the reason thanks to which this team managed to defeat Cisterna (3-0) and Verona (3-1 on away field), moreover among the other players there are also Antonov, Candellaro and Russell. Given that these last two were part of gialloblù team, them will be given a prize right before the starting whistle, so to celebrate their first match as opponents. Candellaro had played 81 matches and Russell 73 and they were part of the team as it won the World competition per Club in 2018 and 2019 CEV Cup. According to the statistics, Gas Sales Bluenergy is one of the best team of the whole SuperLega at block (116 blocks in 14 matches) and such a good blocker as Mousavi will be even better.
PREVIOUS MATCHES During the years, the match against Piacenza has become an important event for Italian male Volleyball, also thanks to the many matches played (this team is the 3rd opponent of Trentino Volley, in overall the matches already played are 57, first opponent is Civitanova -77- and second is Modena -75-.) The two teams also played the final matches in year 2008, 2009 and 2013, in 2018/19 Piacenza was playing in Serie A2, but then during the Italian championship in 2019/2020 played again. Trentino Volley won 39 times, the other team 18. During the last 28 matches, gialloblù won 23 times. It has been a very long time since Piacenza last won a match at the BLM Group Arena: last time was on 17th May 2009 (3-2 match 5 of playoff, then the team won the Scudetto), at the time Angelo Lorenzetti.was coach of biancorossi. In total, Trento won 25 matches out of the 31 played against Piacenza on home field, last one was on 13th November 2019 (victory 3-1). During year 2020, the matches between these two teams have only been played at PalaBanca, also the match of the first round on October 11th (3-0 and the points 25-22, 25-13, 25-21).
REFEREES The match will be directed by Umberto Zanussi (from Treviso, in Serie A since 2006) and Rossella Piana (from Carpi - Modena, she works since 2005 and as international referee since 2014).For the first one it’s match number 8, for the other one it is number 9 in SuperLega. Zanussi last directed a match with Trentino Volley during this season (27th September, 3-0 in Padova), while Piana directed the one in November: Cisterna-Trento 1-3.
TV, RADIO AND INTERNET The event will be very important at a worldwide level, for this reason it will be broadcast live on tv, radio and INTERNET. Indeed, RAI Sport + will broadcast it on channel number 57 in HD, on 58 in sd and on Sky on channel 227; the commentary will be made by Maurizio Colantoni and Andrea Lucchetta; it will be possible to follow it also on RaiPlay, both video and audio.
It will also be broadcast on Radio Dolomiti, media partner of Trentino Volley, starting from 6 pm. It will be possible to find the frequencies on www.radiodolomiti.com, there it will also be possible to listen to it going to the section “On Air”.
On Tv catch-up on Monday 21st December at 9.30pm on RTTR, tv partner of ITAS TRENTINO.
On the net is possible to follow the news of the match point-to point (www.legavolley.it) and on  www.trentinovolley.it and on the Social Network www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram e www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
NO SPECTATORS ALLOWED TO BLM GROUP ARENA According to the new measures of the atest DPCM, no spectators will be allowed to the arena, only personnel or staff will have the possibility to enter.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office