Trento, 24 April 2023

Play Off, the 5th game of the Semifinal series on Tuesday at the BLM Group Arena

The fifth and decisive match of the SuperLega Credem Banca 2023 Playoff Scudetto Semifinal series between Itas Trentino and Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza will be played on Tuesday, April 25th starting at 6 p.m. at the BLM Group Arena in Trento. Three days after Game 4 in Emilia, which brought the match back to a draw, the two teams will go back to the court in the Fersina Street’s facility for the match that will award the winner access to the Final. Live on RAI Sport HD, Radio Dolomiti and live streaming on the OTT Volleyball World Tv platforms.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO The yellow-blue team are facing yet another in-or-out match of their season: indeed, a victory is needed to continue the race leading to the Scudetto, which would allow them to win the ninth Playoff Final in the history of Trentino Volley. Playing the tie-breaker in front of their own public will offer a small but important advantage, which Angelo Lorenzetti's team will try to take advantage of to achieve the winning point.
"Even before the start of the series we knew that game 5 could be a realistic scenario" explained Itas Trentino coach introducing the match; "Finding ourselves at 2-2 after being ahead 2-0 certainly left us obviously with regrets, also because we didn't take properly advantage of some opportunities in the last two games, but none of us had deluded himself that we had already accomplished the hardest part of the task with the two first victories. What lies ahead is a match to be lived to the fullest, with the awareness that we have done so much to get to have this opportunity and that we can cause problems to a great team like Piacenza, especially if we can regain efficiency in attack and especially in the breakpoint phase."
For Game 5, the yellow-blue coach will be able to count on the entire roster of fourteen players, who will face the 141st game in the Playoff Scudetto in Trentino's history (for a tally of 82 wins and 58 losses).
SEVENTEENTH PLAYOFF MATCH IN SCUDETTO PLAYOFFS In the span of its nineteen previous appearances in the Playoff Scudetto, Trentino Volley has already played sixteen playoff matches, similar to the one that awaits it on Tuesday night, winning ten of them (the last one on April 10th, 2022 during a home match right against Piacenza for the quarterfinals). The tally of home matches is of ten victories in eleven matches, including also those in 2008, 2013 and the 2022 that was against Piacenza, which was, however, the only one to win a playoff in the then PalaTrento (Game 5 of the 2009 Final). The outcome that occurred most often was the tie break: seven times out of sixteen, with three yellow-blue team’s victories; before the current one, the editions of the Playoffs in which Trentino Volley had played the tiebreaker in the Semifinals were 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022. For Trentino Volley, the one with the Emilian team will be the 991st official match in its history, the 48th of the season.
THE OPPONENTS Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza returns to Trento for the fourth and final time this season with the goal of completing a comeback from 0-2 to 3-2 for the second consecutive round on the scoreboard, as it did with Modena in the quarterfinals. To achieve its first Scudetto final qualification, possibly the fifth in the Emilian city's history, the new club will thus need to conquer the Trentino facility for the third time within five months after victories on January 8th and April 19th.
THE BACKGROUND Tuesday will see the seventy-third confrontation between the two Societies, the eighth of the season; the overall record sees Trentino Volley ahead 48-24, while the record for the current year is 5-2 victories for Piacenza. The BLM Group Arena has been hostile to the red-white team in twenty-one of the last twenty-three previous matches, but the only two recent victories have come in the current calendar year. The Emilians players have been the only ones able to overcome Itas Trentino this season without dropping sets to their opponents: three times between February 26 in Rome, April 19th in Trento and April 22nd in Emilia. In the other forty-four official matches played, Lorenzetti's team has always won at least one set (and in 32 cases the victory).
THE SERIES Trento and Piacenza are at 2-2 in the SuperLega Credem Banca 2023 Playoff Scudetto semifinal series that ends Tuesday, by virtue of 3-0 wins in Game 1 on April 13th (scores of 25-23, 25-22, 25-18) in Trento and in Game 2 on April 16th in Emilia (scores of 25- 19, 25-22, 20-25, 25-20) by Itas Trentino, to which Gas Sales Bluenergy replied on April 19th at the BLM Group Arena with the 3-0 outside (25-23, 25-22, 25-20) and on April 22nd with the 3-0 home victory (25-21, 25-23, 25-23) at PalaBanca. These results have made it necessary to play the fifth and decisive tie-breaker match. Whoever makes it through the round will find in the Finals series (best of five games, the first is scheduled as early as Sunday, May 1st) the winner of Civitanova-Milan, who will play their playoff match at the same time in the Marche region.
THE REFEREES The match will be managed by Andrea Puecher (from Rubano-Padua, in the highest category since 2003 and international one since 2013) and Giuseppe Curto (from Gorizia, in Serie A since 2013). For Puecher it will be the seventeenth match of the season in SuperLega; four of the previous ones are related to Trentino Volley, including the Coppa Italia Final last February 26th in Rome played against Piacenza. For Curto it will be the fourteenth match of the 2022/23 season, three matches with Itas Trentino: the 3-0 home loss match to Verona (December 26th) and Monza (January 29th) and the 3-1 away loss match to Padova (March 5th).
RADIO, TV AND INTERNET The match 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 HD, a channel present on the digital terrestrial platform at number 58 and on RAI PLAY platform. 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 for a fee. For more in-depth information on the use of the same consult the site www.welcome.volleyballworld.tv/faq-it. On TV the match recap will be aired on Friday, April 28th at 4:30 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) 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 only in the "full" type of season ticket, while those who had purchased the "basic" type can buy a ticket for the match at any time by confirming their seats, including on the Internet by clicking https://trentinovolley.vivaticket.it/it/event/semifinale-play-off-s5/206559. The vouchers will be also available on Thursday at the BLM Group Arena ticket offices, which will be operative starting at 4:45 p.m., the same time when the arena entrances will also open.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office