Trento, 23 December 2022

SuperLega back on court on boxing day for the second turn of the second round

As tradition, the SuperLega does not stop during the holiday season and on Boxing Day offers the second round of the 2022/23 regular season return leg, the thirteenth overall. On this occasion Itas Trentino will be engaged at the BLM Group Arena in Trento, hosting WithU Verona for the 44th edition of the so-called Adige Derby. The kickoff will be at 6 p.m. on December 26th; live Radio Dolomiti broadcast and live streaming on the OTT Volleyball World Tv platform.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO After starting the second half of the season in the best way possible with the 3-0 win over Siena last Sunday, the yellow-blue lineup chases confirmations and another positive result in the SuperLega, to extend the positive streak in the championship and try to take another step forward in the standings against a direct competitor for the top standings.
"It is an important appointment for several reasons, first of all for the standings, and we are happy to face it with a whole week of preparation behind us," explained coach Angelo Lorenzetti "After the Club World Championship in Brazil we needed to be able to work with care and attention in the gym and the team was good at taking advantage of this period to get ready, also because the opponent to be challenged is particularly tough. In last seasons Verona has always fought tooth and nail when it has found us on the other side of the net, and so far it has been a great protagonist in the championship thanks also to a very incisive service. We’ll need to do a great performance, but the fact of being able to play this appointment at home and thus count on the support of our public encourages us to look at the match with optimism and even greater determination."
Itas Trentino will conclude its training for the match in the coming hours, sustaining a technical session in the afternoons of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; the yellow-blue coach can count on the entire shortlist at his disposal with the exception of Oreste Cavuto (still unavailable due to an abdominal injury suffered in November).
TWELFTH MATCH IN YELLOW-BLUE CLUB HISTORY ON BOXING DAY Playing on the day immediately following Christmas has become a pleasant habit over the years for Trentino Volley, which in twenty-two previous seasons of activity has already taken the court eleven times on Boxing Day; the tally of matches played on that date sees the yellow-blue team winning in eight circumstances: 3-1 precisely with Verona in 2005, 3-0 with Treviso in 2010, 3-1 in Belluno in 2011, 3-1 with Perugia in 2012, 3-0 in Monza in 2014, 3-1 with Padova in 2016, 3-1 with Monza in 2017 and 3-1 in Siena in 2018. During away games the only three losses were: 1-3 in Modena in 2006 and in Treviso in 2007, 2-3 in Verona in 2021. On one occasion Trento also played on December 25th: 3-1 home win with Ravenna on Christmas 2019. On this occasion Trentino Volley will play its 966th official match ever and will seek its 671st win ever, and the 395th in the regular season.
THE OPPONENTS Last Sunday's home loss to Piacenza caused WithU Verona to slide from fourth to sixth place in the standings, but did not change the great impression made in the first 12 matchdays. In fact, the Scaligeri players represent the true revelation of the first round of SuperLega; this is also confirmed by irrefutable data such as statistics; the team coached by former Trentino Volley’s coach Stoytchev (to this day the coach who has sat on Trentino Volley’s bench the most times - 389) is indeed the third of the entire tournament for aces scored (79 - average per set of 1.65) and the fourth for the number of blocks put on the ground (107 - 2.23 per set). Essentially contributing to these good positions was the excellent impact on the Italian championship made by two rookies, such the Malian setter Keita (first aceman and best attacker by weighted average) and Russian opposite player Sapozhkov (best scorer, second aceman and fourth blocker), who scored 37 points in the first leg match. There are other familiar faces on the roster, such as assistant coach Simoni, the middle player Cortesia (often on the runoff with Grozdanov and Mosca to be the first-string player), and the setter Raphael, who often alternates with the setter Spirito.
BACKGROUND Trentino Volley and Verona already have forty-three official matches behind them: six in the Scudetto Playoff (2010 and 2018), thirty-six in the regular season and one in the 2019 Coppa Italia. With Monday's match, Verona team’s lineup joins Top Volley at 44, becoming the sixth club faced the most times in the yellow-blue history. The tally is clearly in favor of the Trener Street’s Club, scoring in no less than thirty games, but the Scaligeri have won four of the last seven matches played; among them, also one at the BLM Group Arena (3-0 on October 4th, 2020). In twenty-three home matches, Trento has won eighteen, the last of which was on October 12th, 2021 (in three sets, with partials of 25-16, 29-27, 25-23 and Kaziyski as MVP, he was a player of NBV Verona). The first leg match, played October 8th in Veneto, ended in a tie break in favor of the hosts, partials of: 23-25, 27-25, 25-20, 28-30, 17-15.
THE REFEREES The match will be managed by Giuseppe Curto (from Gorizia, in Serie A since 2013), and Andrea Pozzato (from Bolzano, referee since 2004), in their fifth and seventh SuperLega matches of the season, respectively. The last previous match with Trentino Volley for Curto dates back to the Final for third place in the 2022 Supercoppa, won 3-1 last November 1st against Modena, while for Pozzato the most recent intersection is the 3-1 home win over Siena on the first matchday (October 2nd).
RADIO, INTERNET AND TV The match will be reported live by 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 will also be available on the OTT platform "Volleyball World TV”, 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 be aired on Friday, December 30rd at 4:45 p.m., on RTTR - partner TV of Trentino Volley. Eventually, on the Internet point-to-point updates will be edited by the website of the Italian Volley League Serie A (www.legavolley.it), by www.trentinovolley.it itself and will always be active on the yellow-blue’s team social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook 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.it/it/event/itas-trentino-verona/198995. The vouchers will be also available on Saturday at the BLM Group Arena ticket offices, which will be operative starting at 4:45 p.m., the same time the arena entrances will also open.The use of the mask is not mandatory to enter the stadium.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office