Trento, 20 January 2024

SuperLega, on Sunday in Piacenza for the fourth round of the Return Leg

The fifteenth round of the SuperLeague Credem Banca 2023/24 regular season will be played this weekend, marking the fourth round of the return leg. After two consecutive home matches in both the Italian league and the Champions League, Itas Trentino men's team will be on the road, visiting Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza on Sunday, January 21; the match at the PalaBanca is scheduled to start at 4:00 PM. It will be broadcast live on Radio Dolomiti and live-streamed on the OTT platform Volleyball World Tv.
ITAS TRENTINO After closing the first phase of the Champions League Pool B on Wednesday night, the Italian Champions now turn their attention back to the Superlega, preparing for one of the toughest matches in the return leg against the third-placed team.
"Having temporarily put aside the European campaign, where we successfully secured qualification among the top teams, we can focus on national competitions in the next weeks, which is a good thing because we will play a series of important matches in the league and the Coppa Italia against strong opponents - explains coach Fabio Soli on the eve of the match -. The Piacenza match will immediately immerse us in the atmosphere we will encounter in every single subsequent occasion: we will play the game in a very heated arena, full of spectators, against a tough team, as demonstrated by their clear victory in three sets on Wednesday night in Berlin. On our part, we want to return to showcasing our best volleyball, unlike the inconsistent performance offered against Rzeszow, by reintroducing quality and continuity in the fundamentals of reception and attack, which will be crucial to make our mark at PalaBanca."
Itas Trentino will have all fourteen players from the roster in Piacenza and will complete the preparation for the match in the evening with a training session lasting about ninety minutes on the playing field. This will be Trentino Volley’s 586th regular-season match, the 1,019th in its history in the men division; the Club form via Trener will seek its 711th victory ever, having won five consecutive rounds in the league (last defeat in Modena, on December 10).
THE OPPONENTS Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza, coming off four consecutive victories in the SuperLega (six in the last seven matches) and direct qualification for the Champions League quarter-finals (achieved with a 3-0 win in Berlin on Wednesday night), hosts Itas Trentino with the goal of trying to interrupt its smooth march in the league and to reduce the gap, currently five points. In recent times, the team coached by Andrea Anastasi has often had to do without Leal, one of its best players, but has found a more than capable substitute in Recine, as his statistics in the return leg alone clearly show; in the span of three matches, the young Italian spiker has scored 60 personal points with attack percentages well above 50%. He, along with the consistent performance of former Trentino player Lucarelli (sixth top scorer in the league), and the rediscovered Romanò, will be entrusted to the setter Brizard to secure another victory at PalaBanca, where, in the regular season, the team has conceded only three points to opponents in six matches out of eighteen available (two to Civitanova, one to Milan). Numbers reveal that the Emilian team has the third most effective serve in the category (with an average of 1.6 aces per set), also thanks to a great performer in this fundamental like Simon (already with twenty ace serves), who also plays a significant role in blocking (fourth blocker with 34 blocks) and in the first tempo (second middle blocker for performance index).
PREVIOUS MATCHES This Sunday will mark the eighth official encounter between Itas Trentino and Gas Sales Bluenergy in the last twelve months, during which the two clubs also faced each other in an Italian Cup Final, a series of five Playoff semifinal matches, and a regular-season game (the first leg won by Trento 3-1 on November 11 with set scores of 26-24, 25-19, 16-25, 25-18). The rivalry runs deep, as reflected in the statistics: with 74 previous encounters, Piacenza is the third-most frequently faced team in the history of Trentino Volley (after Civitanova with 96 and Modena with 83). The breakdown includes 41 regular-season matches, 28 in the Playoff Scudetto (including Finals in 2008, 2009, 2013, the 2023 semifinal, and the quarterfinals in 2005, 2021, and 2022), 3 in Coppa Italia (2023 final, 2014 semifinal, and 2015 quarterfinal), and 2 in the CEV Cup (2017 quarterfinal). The record favours the Club from via Trener: 50-24, thanks also to the long winning streak in recent years; since Piacenza returned to the top national league (2019/20 season), they have won only six times in twenty official matches. The most recent encounter played in Emilia was on April 22: a defeat for the yellow-blue team by 0-3 in the fourth Playoff semifinal match. Overall, Trentino Volley has won sixteen official matches against the Emilians at PalaBanca.
REFEREES The match will be officiated by Giuseppe Curto (from Gorizia, in Serie A since 2013) and Stefano Caretti (from Guidonia - Rome, active since 2016), respectively in their ninth and eighth games of the season for SuperLeague Credem Banca teams. The last encounter with Trentino Volley men’s team for the Friulian referee was the home victory 3-1 against Monza on November 19, 2023; for the referee from Lazio, the most recent encounter is the three-set victory in Padova on St. Stephen's Day.
RADIO, INTERNET, AND TV The match will be covered in live commentary by Radio Dolomiti, media partner of Trentino Volley. Frequencies to listen to the regional network can be found on the website www.radiodolomiti.com, where live radio commentary can also be followed via streaming.
The live video streaming on the OTT platform "Volleyball World Tv" is also confirmed; there is a charge for the service. For more information on how to access it, please visit https://it.volleyballworld.com/volleyball-tv-it.
A summary will be broadcast on television on Monday, January 22, at 9:45 PM, on RTTR - media partner of Trentino Volley.
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 always be active on the yellow-blue Social Network (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram, and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office