Ljubljana (Slovenia), 21 May 2022

The Final on 2022 CEV Champions League on Sunday in Ljubljiana

The final of 2022 CEV Champions League will be played on Sunday 22nd May at Arena Stozice in Ljubljiana. This will be the annual match that assigns the title of Champions of Europe and Trentino Itas will face the Polish, current champions, of Grupa Azoty Kedzierzyn-Kozle, as it had already occurred in the edition 2021. The starting whistle is scheduled at 21; live on RAI 2+, Radio Dolomiti, Discovery+, Eurosport 2, DAZN, TimVision, Amazon Video Channel.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO After having waited for twenty-four days, the yellow-blue team will get back in court for the last match of season 2021/22, the most important. Kaziyski and his teammates had arrived in Slovenia on Friday afternoon, at the end of three full weeks of training, without official matches, where team technical team set for the team several activities in order to arrive in the best way possible to the appointment, both physical and technical.
For this occasion, Angelo Lorenzetti can count on all its thirteen players. Trentino Itas will improve the training for the match with this night training and the one on Sunday morning at Arena Stozice. There are five players in the roster, who have already played one or more finals for the Club European Cup, in the list there are: Kaziyski, De Angelis, Cavuto, Podrascanin, Michieletto, Lisinac, Sperotto and Sbertoli.
NINTH EUROPEAN FINAL, THE THIRTY-EIGHTH IN THE HISTORY OF THE CLUB The European final scheduled on Sunday will be the ninth in the history of Trenitno Volley, the fourteenth international in the last thirteen years. It will be the thirty-eighth of all the time; in total there are forty-four matches played in international court: three agaist Piacenza in playoff scudetto 2008, 2009 and 2013 (respectively to the best of three and five matches), six against Cuneo (Italian Cup 2010 and 2011, V-Day 2010 and 2011, Italian Supercup 2010 and 2011), seven against Macerata (V-Day 2012, Play off 2017, Italian Cup 2012 and 2017; Italian Supercup 2008, 2012 and 2012), five against Modena (Italian Cup 2015 and 2016, Final of scudetto 2015, final of Italian Supercup 2015 and 2018) and the most recent: against Monza in Sueprcup and Perugia in Italian Cup. In the report of the matches that assign the title the yellow-blue team was victorious nineteen out of thirty-seven matches: it is interesting that Trentino Volley has won nine out of the thirteen international finals in which it has taken part up to now. We have to add to the wonderful track record, besides the Champinos League (2009, 2010 and 2011), also the five finals of World Club Cup, the first four played in Doha against Belchatow (3-0 on 8 November 2009 and 3-1 on 21 December 2010), Jastrzebski (3-1, 14 October 2011) and Cruzeiro (19 October 2012, 3-0) and the one in Czestochowa (2 December 2018) against Civitanova in addition to the one in CEV Cup (won in Istanbul on 27 March 2019) and the one of last edition in Champions League (1 May 2021 in Verona), which was the most recent up to now.
THE NUMBER IN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE OF TRENTINO VOLLEY The one on Sunday night will be the 115^ match of its history in Champions League, ending the 11th total participation to the highest continental club cup. The report is 88 victories and 26 defeats, the last one on 7th April at BLM Group Arena against Perugia before the trunphal golden set. In away-games it has won 44 out of 62 matches played in total. The player that has collected the highest number of presences with his yellow-blue shirt is Kaziyski (62). The yellow-blue society has faced five different Polish teams in its history: besides Kedzierzyn-Kozle (9), there are also matches against Belchatow (4), Czestochowa (2), Jastrzebski (2) e Rzesow (2).
THE OPPONENTS Grupa Azoty Kedzierzyn-Kozle, simply known as Kaska, arrives to the appointment as the current champions and highly improved compared to the Final won on 1 May 2021 in Verona. The half of the list of players of that time (the setter Toniutti, the libero Zatorski and the middle-blocker Kochanowski) packed their bags last summer, with their coach Nikola Grbic. However, the Society found immediately some substitutes with the same level, as the setter Janusz, the position 3 Huber (he won’t be present in Ljubljiana due to an injury, Rejno will play in his place) and the second line player from US Shoji. The new coach, George Cretu (former Bassano and Resovia), could count for the season on his three hitter-spikers champions of Europe (Kaczmarek, Sliwka, Semeniuk) and on the middle-blocker Smith, the main characters of the triumphant ride of last season. Their results confirmed the effectiveness of this block. The victory of 2021 CEV Champions League confirmed the centrality of the Society in the Polish volleyball, considering also that in its palmarès there are nine championships (the last one won more than a week ago in the Final against Jastrzebski), and Nine National Cup (the most recent won on last 27 February, against Jastrzebski) in addition to a series of important placings in the European court. The most significant was, without a doubt, the one of season 2010/11, when it was a step away from the victory of CEV Cup, losing only during the golden set in the double final match against Sisley Treviso. The one in Slovenia will be the 11th participation in the highest continental tounrament. The list of players of Grupa Azoty Kedzierzyn-Kozle: 2. Lukasz Kaczmarek (o), 3. Markus Kosian (c), 4. Krzysztof Rejno (c), 5. Marcin Janusz (p), 8. Adrian Staszewski (s), 9. Bartlomiej Kluth (o), 11. Aleksander Sliwka (s), 13. Kamil Semeniuk (s), 15. David Smith (c), 16. Tomasz Kalembka (c), 18. Michal Kozlowski (p), 21. Wojciech Zalinski (s); 22. Erik Thomas Shoji (l), 71. Korneliusz Banach (l). Coach Gheorghe Cretu.
THE FORMULA The 2022 CEV Champions League will be assigned, as the tradition, in a single match. The cancellation of the Final Four for just one day of matches, when male and female matches are played in the same location, is the real news from edition 2019. The match of Trentino Itas will be anticipated at 18 from the match between Conegliano and Istanbul, that will decide which team in the list will win 2022 CEV Champions League.
PREVIOUS MATCHES The two clubs have a long series of direct matches in the European Cups, in fact Zaska is the foreign team that Trentino Volley has faced the most, along with Dinamo Mosca, with nine previous matches. Besides the final of last edition (1 May 2021 in Verona, 3-1 for the Polish), the match went on stage even during the Champions League group stage 2012, 2013 and 2018 and in the semifinal of CEV Cup 2015. The report is positive for the yellow-blue tram with 5-4, however Trento has lost the last three direct matches: in addition to the one in Verona, there are also the matches played on 20 December 2017 in Poland and on 14 February 2018 at BLM Group Arena. Matey Kaziyski has broken a record of Trentino Volley against the Polish line-up, the one of the European Cups: the number of aces made in just one match from a single yellow-blue player. On 28 March 2015 against Zaska, the teamleader made 8 personal aces contributing to the home victory for 3-2.
REFEREES The match will be directed by the French Fabrice Collados and assisted by the Turkish Nurper Ozbar. Collados, residing in Vienne, has the greatest number of previous matches with Trentino Volley of the two, who has directed the yellow-blue team five times, all in Champions League: Ceske Budejovice 3-0 on 10 December 2009 (group stage), Maaseik-Trento 1-3 on 14 January 2014 (first round of quarter finals), Civitanova-Trento 0-3 on 16 April 2016 in Cracow (semifinal), Izmir-Trento 1-3 on 1 February 2018 (group stage), but especially the final Kazan-Trento 3-2 on 17 April 2016, also in Cracow. In the past he had also directed the final of edition 2018 (won by the hosts of Kazan 3-2 over Lube on 13 May) and 2015 (Kazan-Resovia 3-0 in Berlin on 29 May). For Ozbar, residing in Istanbul, this will be the 2nd match with the society from Trentino, already directed during the external match played on 19 February 2020 in Ceske Budejovice (Czech Republic) and won 3-2 in a comeback by the yellow-blue team (the last game of the group stage of that edition of Champions League, then stopped by the pandemic). Her only previous match of Trentino Volley dates back in a Final of edition 2010 of Champions League: 2 May 2010, Trento-Dinamo Mosca 3-0, directed by Sokullu.
TV, RADIO AND INTERNET The match will be a global event, it will have live streaming on every king of social media. It will be broadcasted on RAI channel 2 in television. The images will be spreaded also on Internet in streaming video and audio on www.raisport.rai.it and on the app “RAI Play”, available on every kind of devise.
The radio commentary in streaming will be made by Maurizio Colantoni and Andrea Lucchetta.
The match will have a full live coverage by Radio Dolomiti, network partner of Trentino Volley. The frequencies can be found on www.radiodolomiti.com, where it’s possible to listen to the radio commentary in streaming.
There is also the live streaming on the Platform “Discovery+”, buying the package “Entertaining+Sport” (annual subscription at 69,90 euros). Furtherer information on www.discoveryplus.it/myaccount/products.
The match will be on live straming even on Eurosport 2 and on all the platforms that broadcast the channel, such as DAZN, TimVision, Amazon Video Channel.
On Internet, the point-by-point updates will be made by www.trentinovolley.it, and by the yellow-blue Social Networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter)
MORE THAN 800 FANS FROM TRENTINO AT STOZICE ARENA After having lost last edition in Verona, the fans from Trentino are ready to move as a mass to Slovenia in order to watch the live match. There will be more than 800 fans, between the journey planned by Curva Gislimberti (six buses) and private cars. They will all wear a special yellow t-shirt that will colour in a showy and particular way the Stozice Arena in Ljubljana.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office