Trento, 19 October 2022

SuperLega, on Thursday back on court at BLM Group Arena

The match of the fifth round of the regular season SuperLega Credem Banca 2022/23 between Itas Trentino and Cucine Lube Civitanova will be played on Thursday October 20th at the BLM Group Arena. The match has been put on the calendar on that date because on the originally scheduled date (October 30th) the two teams will be in Cagliari to play the Final Four of the Del Monte® Supercoppa 2022.
Kick-off scheduled for 8:30 p.m.: live on Rai Sport + (channel 58 DGTV), Radio Dolomiti and live streaming on the OTT Volleyball World Tv platform.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO After two pretty unlucky away engagements, which reserved only one point in the ranking, the yellow-blue team comes back to play in front of its own public to face the first home big match of the season.
Lube's arrival at the BLM Group Arena will, however, once again find Itas Trentino in emergency, as they will be without their starting setter Riccardo Sbertoli, who will be kept at rest after an abdominal injury suffered last week. So there will once again be room for the young Niccolò Depalma (born into art, class of 2002) in the setter's box.
"We know that this is a complicated moment for many reasons, but we really want to show what we are made of and we will try to do our best with what we have at disposal, first against Lube and then again on Sunday with Cisterna," said coach Angelo Lorenzetti. Compared to the Piacenza match, we have worked a few more days also with Depalma and the attackers ; I  want my players to give their best and do the simple things in order to take a further step forward, hoping that the public will be able to drag us to do well even the difficult ones".
The team will complete their preparation for the match between training sessions this afternoon and on Thursday morning at the BLM Group Arena, bringing in setter Bernardis from Serie B team UniTrento Volley as an alternative to Depalma. Trentino Volley will take to the court on this occasion for their 947th official match ever and will be hunting for their 657th victory overall: they currently have 343 at home and 313 away.
THE OPPONENTS Cucine Lube Civitanova comes to Trento on the strength of their third place in the rankings, achieved thanks to two 3-0 victories (in Taranto and at home with Modena) and a home tie-break loss to Padova.
Despite the departure of two star players such as Simon and Juantorena, the Marche team was able to immediately find the solution to continue competing at high levels.  
In fact, the roster remains absolutely at a high level, also because the team made targeted and valuable purchases in the summer (such as middle-blocker Chinenyeze and setter Bottolo).
Coach Blengini has no shortage of alternatives in every role. In fact, these first few days he has varied the set-up several times, proposing Zaytsev in both the role of setter and opposite.
Here we go again with Yant, who after a couple of games on the bench, on Sunday night with Modena played his first starting game of the season
BACKGROUND The competition has become a classic in the Italian championship, marking out no less than eight finals: two play-offs (2012 and 2017), three Coppa Italia (2012, 2013 and 2017), two Supercoppa (2009 and 2013) and one World Club Championship for the year 2018.
Besides, Civitanova is along with Modena the only opponent that the Via Trener club has always faced in all two twenty-three seasons of activity and is the one with which it boasts the highest number of previous official matches: a total of 89 (the Emilians are second with 78).
The tally is in favor of the Marches by 51-38, mainly thanks to the recent hat trick imposed by the Cuccinieri’s team, that has won seventeen of the last twenty-three previous matches. During the 2022 calendar year, however, the challenge has been rather balanced, as Trento has won two of the six matches played.
More generally, Trentino Volley has managed to make count the home advantage in twenty of the thirty-six home matches played with Lube. The first ever dates back to March 4th, 2001 (3-1 in the name of De La Fuente) and represents a page in the yellow-blue team history: the club's first victory against a top team.
The two teams also faced each other in the pre-season, playing last September 25th in the Final of the "Volley under the Mucrone" four-way competition in Biella, with a 3-1 success for Lube (25-20, 25-23, 23-25, 25-17).
THE REFEREES The match will be managed by Mauro Goitre (from Turin) and Massimiliano Giardini (from Verona). For Goitre, tenured referee since 2004, it will be the third match of the season in SuperLega; the most recent meeting with Trento is reported on April 10th (3-0 home win over Piacenza in Game 3 of the quarterfinals of the play-off final) For Giardini, in Serie A since 2014, it will instead be the second seasonal direction in the league; the last time with Trento was almost a year ago: November 3rd, 2021, a home tie break loss to Padova.
RADIO, TV AND INTERNET The game will be a global media event, enjoying simultaneous live coverage on television, radio and the Internet. On the small screen it will be broadcast by RAI Sport +, a channel present on the digital terrestrial platform at number 58 with coverage entrusted to Maurizio Colantoni and Andrea Lucchetta.
Live coverage is planned on Radio Dolomiti, media partner of Trentino Volley. Frequencies to listen to the regional network can be found at www.radiodolomiti.com, where it will also be possible to follow the radio report in live streaming.
The live video streaming on the OTT platform "Volleyball World Tv" is also confirmed, the service is pay-per-view. For further information on the use of the same consult www.welcome.volleyballworld.tv/faq-it.
On TV the match recap will also be aired on Friday, October 21th at 4:30 p.m., on RTTR - partner TV of Trentino Volley.
On the Internet, point-to-point updates will be edited by the website of the Italian Volley League Serie A (www.legavolley.it) and by www.trentinovolley.it itself and will always be active on the yellow-blue’s team social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
BOX OFFICE The match is included in both types of season tickets offered for this season by Trentino Volley (full and basic). It is still possible to purchase tickets for the single match at any time on the Internet by clicking https://trentinovolley.vivaticket.i/it/event/itas-trentino-civitanova/192832. The vouchers will be also available on Thursday at the BLM Group Arena ticket offices, which will be operative starting at 7:15 p.m., the same time when the arena entrances will also open.
The use of masks is not mandatory to enter the stadium.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office