Trento, 18 November 2023

SuperLega, another big home match on Sunday!

The sixth round of the SuperLega Credem Banca 2023/24 regular season is to be played this weekend. Itas Trentino will once again star in front of its home crowd, hosting Mint Vero Volley Monza on Sunday, Nov. 19 at the ilT quotidiano Arena in Trento; the match, starting at 6 p.m., will pit the league's first and third ranked teams against each other. Live broadcast on Radio Dolomiti and streaming live on the OTT Volleyball World Tv platform.
ITAS TRENTINO After the midweek match in Milan, the Italian champions close their "Lombard week" by hosting the Brianza team in another match of great significance for the rankings. So far, Trento has dominated this championship (together with Perugia, which however, does have one loss) with its unbeaten streak (five wins out of five).
"We will challenge one of the best teams in the league, - Coach Fabio Soli (former coach of Vero Volleyball between 2018 and 2020) presented the match this way -. The experience and quality of Monza's players have been on display since the beginning of the season. Vero Volley has been able to get some prestigious victories, and has managed to be competitive in the only defeat suffered so far, against the battleship that is Perugia. For us it is another test, to be faced with focus and determination from the very first exchanges. Our recent matches against great teams, such as Piacenza and Milan, have shown our ability to play high level volleyball; however, we couldn’t always keep the consistency we would like. Our most immediate goal is to go in search of this element; we will try to do this on Sunday, to take a further step forward, with tenacity, patience and the right mix of humility and awareness that this group has already shown. We have to manage our energies carefully, this should not be forgotten at all; at this point of the season, we can’t go all out, and so it will be crucial again to accept our limits and to manage our mistakes.”
Trento’s coach will have the entire roster at his disposal; the fourteen players will complete their preparation for the match with Saturday afternoon’s practice and Sunday morning's finishing practice. This will be Trentino Volley's 36th official match in the men's division in 2023, its 459th home match ever, where it has won in 352 instances.
THE OPPONENTS Third place in the rankings, only one point removed from the top, with four wins in five matches and near-perfect performances in away matches so far (only one set conceded to the hosts). The numbers alone show how great this championship has been for Mint Vero Volley Monza; the team has been able to collect all the points on difficult courts such as those of Civitanova, Modena and Verona, and to win 3-0 at home against Taranto. Compared to the lineup that last spring challenged the Italian champions for the qualification to the Scudetto semifinals until game 4, there are three new additions. Next to Brazilian setter Kreling, middle blockers Di Martino and Galassi (former Gialloblù player), and Canadian spiker Maar, we can now find: opposite Szwarc (also Canadian, already on the roster in the previous season as alternative to Grozer), Japanese hammer Takahashi and libero Gaggini, who returned from Verona. Their inclusion was immediately successful, considering that the high-ball pair has already scored a total of 148 points and the second-line specialist is the 12th best receiver in the tournament (according to the weighted average). Monza is the team with the most aces so far: 37, three more than Trento. However, it will come to the match without French opposite Lawani, who terminated his contract with the club just this week.
THE PREVIOUS MATCHES Twenty-eight official matches have been played between the two clubs, with the record clearly in favour of Trentino Volley (25-3). Trento has won ten of the last eleven matches, including the most recent one, played in Brianza on April 2 (3-0 with set scores of 22-25, 20-25, 19-25 and Michieletto MVP in Game 4 of the Play Off Scudetto quarterfinals). Brianza's only victories are two tiebreaks, both won in Lombardy (on March 4, 2018 and October 25, 2020), and a 3-1 success, also at home (last March 22 in game 2 of the quarterfinals). Meanwhile, when Trentino Volley has the home field advantage, it has only ever won: fifteen times in as many official matches played, with Vero Volley winning just eleven sets in these circumstances. The last appearance at the ilT quotidiano Arena for Monza is dated March 25, 2023: 3-1 for the hosts, again in the Play Off Scudetto. In the regular season, the most recent match played in the via Fersina facility is dated January 29, 2023 (3-0).
THE REFEREES The match will be directed by Giuseppe Curto (from Gorizia, in Serie A since 2013) and Umberto Zanussi (from Treviso, tenured since 2006), respectively in their fourth and fifth matches of the season in SuperLega Credem Banca 2023/24. The last Trento match for Curto was a 3-1 win over Piacenza on April 25 in Game 5 of the Scudetto Play Off semifinals (April 25); the most recent match for Zanussi was one of the finals that awarded Trento the Scudetto last season: Itas Trentino-Cucine Lube Civitanova 3-1 on May 1 (Game 1 of the Final).
RADIO, INTERNET, AND TV The match will be reported live 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 live play-by-play on streaming.
Also confirmed is the live video streaming on the OTT platform "Volleyball TV” (paid service). For additional information consult https://it.volleyballworld.com/volleyball-tv-it.
On television, the highlights of the match will be aired on Monday, Nov. 20, at 10:00 p.m., on RTTR - Trentino Volley's media partner.
On the Internet, there will be live updates on the Volleyball League's Serie A website (www.legavolley.it) and on www.trentinovolley.it; updates will always be available on yellow-blue social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
TICKETS The match is included in both types of season tickets (full and base) offered by Trentino Volley. You can still purchase tickets for the single match anytime on the website: https://trentinovolley.vivaticket.it/it/event/itas-trentino-monza/224206. Coupons will also be available on Saturday at the ilT quotidiano Arena ticket offices, which will open at 5 p.m., the same time at which the arena entrances will also open.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office