Bologna, 29 January 2021

In Bologna Del Monte® Coppa Italia Final Four 2021

Saturday 30th January begins at Unipol Arena in Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna) the Final Four di Del Monte® Coppa Italia 2021. Itas will play in the semifinal, against Sir Safety Conad Perugia: starting whistle scheduled for 6 pm. Live on RAI Sport + and Radio Dolomiti. 
HERE ITAS TRENTINO gialloblù arrives in Bologna after 16 consecutive victories achieved in more then 2 months (last defeat was on 25th November, on home filed against Vibo) and is ready to play against Perugia- with this team, gialloblù once won 3-1 and oncewas defeated 3-1. In order to assure to play the final of Coppa Italia, as it last did in 2017, at the Unipol Arena the team has to win the match, and show the same ability it has showed 3 days ago against Milan.
“We’ll play against Sir Safety Conad, a very strong team that is used to play the final match of Final Four. For us, this is a new experience, well the players are new at it and they’re not used to this kind of pressures - said coach Angelo Lorenzetti while presenting the match -. We’ll have to do our best, but we are pretty confident, determined and motivated by the path we’ve followed up to now”.
The team arrived in Bologna at lunch time, and this evening will have the opportunity to train at the Unipol Arena for about one hour and a half; a great occasion to try to play in such a big arena and test the capacities of the players, once again. The whole team is ready for the match, also Kooy-who played Wednesday night at the quarter finals, after 20 days of break due to muscular problems. The match on Saturday will be 876th official match for Trentino Volley The team registered 613 victories and 262 defeats, match number 471 on away field - during this season the team achieved 10 victories and was only defeated 3 times (two times in Civitanova and one in Monza).
GIANNELLI WILL PLAY 300TH MATCH WITH GIALLOBLU’ SKIRT Right in this occasion, Simone Giannelli will play 300th match with Itas, he’s the sixth player that achieves such an high number, after Birarelli e Colaci (345 for both ), Bari (339), Kaziyski (334) and Lanza (300) he’s the youngest to achieve it, he’s only 24. He played 114 match as Capitain, only two other played more matches than him (Kaziyski 204 times and Lanza 150). The statistics reveals that he played one time in season 2013/14, 40 in season 2014/15, 48 in season2015/16, 56 in season2016/17, 48 in season2017/18, 50 in season2018/19, 30 in season2019/20, 26 during this one.
TRENTINO VOLLEY’S STORY IN COPPA ITALIA the team is about to play Final Four di Coppa Italia for 14th time; the team has taken part 19 times, it won in 2010, achieving the victory against Modena (3-0) and then against Cuneo (3-1, on 31st January in Montecatini) and two times in 2012: edition 2011/12 at PalaLottomatica in Roma against Belluno (3-0) and Macerata (3-2), between 18th and 19th February and the edition 2012/2013 at Forum in Assago against Vibo Valentia (3-0) and Macerata (3-1) between 29th and 30th December. Other times, gialloblù was defeated by Cuneo, (3 times, all 3-1, on 2nd February 2002 at Forum in Assago, on 28th January 2006 at PalaFiera in Forlì in semifinal, on 23rd January 2011 at PalaOlimpia in Verona in final), than by Piacenza (1-3 on 8th March 2014 at PalaDozza in Bologna) in 2014 and 2015 (11 January 2015 and 7 February 2016) by Modena in Final, in 2017 against Civitanova in Finale, in 2018 in semifinal with Perugia in Bari (27 January 2018) eduring last 2 by Lube in semifinal (2-3, 9 February 2019 and 22 February 2021). In general, Itas played 42 times in Coppa Italia winning 24 matches (also the latest one, on 27th january, 3-0 in Milano). The player who most played during this competition is Colaci- he collected 21 times between 2011 and 2017. Giannelli is the player (still in the team) that played most (16); Podrascanin (3 times) and Rossini (2), these are the players who have already won.
THE OPPONENTS Sir Safety Conad Perugia, at the moment is the best team on the ranking, it playes back at the Arena (where achieved the victory in 2019 and was very closed to it also in 2020) and tries to get the qualification for the final, as it uses to do since 2018, when it won for the first time in Bari. The participation, the 9th for the team, begun with a defeat 3-1 on home field, against Ravenna during the quarter final, a match that let coach Vital Heynen verify the capacity of two players uch as the opposite Atanasijevic and the middle blocker Russo, who could only play very few times due to physical problems. In Emilia, the team can count on all the players of the team, which after the defeat on home field against Trento, only managed to win (4 victories, 2 against Ravenna, Milano and Modena). The setter Travica has many choices in attack: Leon (second best scorer and aceman of the championship, after Nimir) and Plotnytskyi, and many good players as middle blockers such as Ricci and Solé (best in attack in SuperLega).
FINAL FOUR PROGRAMME on Saturday 30th January, at Unipol Arena will be played the semifinal match, before Trento-Perugia, at 3.30 pm the match between Civitanova and Modena. Next day, on Sunday, the final between the 2 winners at 6 pm. All the matches will be broadcast live on RAI Sport +.
PREVOIUS MATCHES the semifinal is the copy of a match that has already happened 3 times in Coppa Italia; two times in the same phase: on 10th January 2015 in Bologna at PalaDozza, Itas won 3-2 (22-25, 28-26, 19-25, 25-14, 15-10) and on 27th january 2018 in Bari, the Umbrian team won 0-3 (3 sets 17-25) The teams also played a quarter-final in Trento, in 2013, won by gialloblù in 4 sets on 26th December; 3-1 and the sets 25-16, 25-18, 21-25, 25-17. In general the official matches already played are 36, Trentino won 19 of them; during the season both the team have achieved the same number of victories: on 18th October at BLM Group Arena Perugia won (25-17, 22-25, 17-25, 25-27), while on 3rd January trento won at PalaBarton (25-20, 23-25, 25-19, 25-19). The match at Unipol Arena, will be match number 5 on a neutral match.
THE REFEREES Fipav has already decided 6 referees that will direct the final and the semi final, but has not said the couples yet. They will be Roberto Boris (from Vigevano, Pavia), Stefano Cesare (Roma), Mauro Goitre (Torino), Dominga Lot (Santa Lucia di Piave, Venezia), Ilaria Vagni (Perugia) and Marco Zavater (Roma). All of them have already directed a match with Trentino Volley during this season, except for Dominga Lot. 
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. It will be broadcast on RAI Sport +, on channel 57 in HD, 58 in sd and on Sky on channel 227, it will be commented by Maurizio Colantoni and Andrea Lucchetta; it will also be possible to follow it on the net, on the app RaiPlay and in 8 different countris thanks to the broadcast live by Sportklub Serbia, Kosovo, Croazia, Bosnia Erzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro) and  Polsat (Polonia), in addition to the main betting website worldwide.
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 1st January at 9.30pm on RTTR- 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 UNIPOL ARENA No spectators will be allowed to the arena, only personnel or staff will have the possibility to enter.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office