Trento, 06 January 2024

SuperLega, on court in Taranto for the second round of the second round

The thirteenth round of the regular season SuperLega Credem Banca 2023/24, the second of the second round, will be played over the Epiphany weekend. Itas Trentino men's team will be away, visiting Gioiella Prisma Taranto on Sunday, January 7th; kick-off at PalaMazzola scheduled for 5 p.m. Live broadcast on Radio Dolomiti and live streaming on the OTT Volleyball World Tv platform.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO The Italian Champions face one of the longest away games of the season (almost a thousand kilometres, to be covered Saturday afternoon with a bus trip to Bergamo, with a subsequent flight to Bari and then another bus transfer to Taranto) in their first away engagement of 2024, which comes right after qualifying for the Italian Cup Final Four.
"The match of the first half of the season is a vivid memory in our minds and it must continue to be so in order to face this engagement with the greatest possible attention and shrewdness - warns coach Fabio Soli during the presentation of the match - . We came very close to losing that match 3-1, and all the more reason why we must approach Sunday's match with great humility and attention to detail, starting with the approach to the match. It is true that compared to that time our idea of the game has grown, but so has Taranto, as demonstrated by the recent victory over Catania and the large number of tie-breaks played in the first half of the season. Gioiella Prisma is a team that expresses moments of very high volleyball, especially in batting; we will have to try to limit them especially in this fundamental if we want to obtain a positive result in this away match as well".
Itas Trentino will present themselves in Apulia with thirteen players from the squad (only Nelli will remain in Trento, to carry out differentiated work), who completed their preparation for the match this morning, before departing. On this occasion Trentino Volley will play match number 1,015 in its history in the men's sector and will be looking for the 708th success ever, possibly the 339th away.
THE OPPONENTS Gioiella Prisma Taranto had to wait until the last round of the first half of the season to get their first win of the season in the championship, but the 3-1 win over Catania, on 26 December, was a particularly heavy result that relaunched the Ionian team's chances of salvation. With the three points achieved at home against Farmitalia (a direct competitor to avoid the last place in the standings), the red and blue have jumped to +5 compared to the relegation zone, now being able to look with greater confidence at the games that await them, first of all that of Sunday at home against Trento. At PalaMazzola so far, the team coached by Ljubomir Travica (who replaced Mastrangelo on the Apulian bench on 20 November last) has collected five of the nine points it boasts in the standings, dragging Modena and Padua to the tie break. Precisely the fifth set was the epilogue that occurred most often in the first part of the SuperLega, taking into account also those played in Milan, Cisterna, Civitanova and Trento, in the first away match of its regular season. The statistics tell of how the main outlets of the game proposed by setter Trinidad De Haro are the setters Gutierrez and Lanza (respectively the tenth and fifteenth scorers of the tournament with 165 and 156 points) and how the opposite player Russell is very incisive at bat (eighth aceman with 16 winning serves). At the block another star athlete stands out: the former Berlin middle blocker Jendryk, who with his 30 personal blocks is paired with Podrascanin in third place in the ranking dedicated to this single fundamental.
THE BACKGROUND The confrontation between Prisma Taranto and Trentino Volley is back on stage in the 2021/22 season almost twelve years after the last time. In fact, between 2000 and 2010 the two clubs faced each other fourteen times, exclusively in matches valid for the regular season of the then Serie A1 championship. The overall balance therefore includes nineteen challenges and sees the yellow-blue Club ahead 12-7, having won ten of the twelve most recent matches, including the four of the previous two regular seasons (2021/22 and 2022/23) and the one in the first round of this championship: 3-2 on October 28th 2023 in Trento, with scores of 25-16, 23-25, 18-25, 26-24, 15-8 and Rychlicki mvp (23 points). The yellow-blue won four of the nine matches played at home against the Ionians, defeating the PalaFiom (another venue in the Apulian city) 3-1 on March 15th 2008 and then the PalaMazzola on January 24th 2010 (in three sets), November 24th 2021 (3-1) and  February 5th 2023 (again with the maximum score). In all other cases came defeats: two by 0-3, one by 1-3 and two by 2-3.
THE REFEREES The match will be directed by Armando Simbari (from Milan, in Serie A since 2007 and international since 2016) and Luca Saltalippi (from Torgiano - Perugia, in the top category since 2011), respectively in their eighth and sixth matches of the season against Credem Banca SuperLega teams. The last previous meeting with Trentino Volley men's volleyball for the Lombardy referee is related to an away match (victory in three sets in Civitanova Marche on 3 December), while for the Umbrian referee the most recent meeting is related to match 2 of the Play Off Scudetto quarter-finals, lost by Trento in Monza 1-3 on 22 March 2023.
RADIO, INTERNET AND TV The match will be reported live by Radio Dolomiti, media partner of Trentino Volleyball. The frequencies to listen to the regional network can be found on the website www.radiodolomiti.com, where it will also be possible to follow the live radio commentary in streaming.
Also confirmed is the live video streaming on the OTT platform "Volleyball World Tv"; the service is pay-per-view. More information on how to use it can be found at https://it.volleyballworld.com/volleyball-tv-it .
On television a summary will be aired on Monday  January 8th at 21.45, on RTTR - Trentino Volleyball's media partner.
On the internet, point-to-point updates will be provided by the Lega Pallavolo Serie A website (www.legavolley.it) and by www.trentinovolley.it, and will also be active on the Gialloblù social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office