Trento, 24 February 2024

SuperLega, on Sunday top challenge for 21st round of regular season in Umbria

The penultimate round (21st overall) of SuperLega Credem Banca 2023/24 regular season will be played this weekend. Itas Trentino men's team will be once again on the road, visiting Sir Susa Vim Perugia in the top clash scheduled for Sunday, February 25. At PalaBarton, kick-off is scheduled to start at 6 p.m.: live on Radio Dolomiti and streaming live on the OTT Volleyball World Tv platform.
ITAS TRENTINO The Italian Champions face the last away match of regular season already certain of ending first place in the standings (mathematically obtained with two rounds to spare, thanks to last Sunday's victory against Modena), in between the Champions League quarterfinal doubleheader against Berlin, which will arrive in Trento on Thursday, February 29 for the return match. Also, in view of this important challenge, coach Fabio Soli will in all likelihood spare former Perugia player Kamil Rychlicki (still in the group but struggling with a right shoulder problem that has been hindering his performance recently). On the launching pad in the role of opposite player is therefore Gabriele Nelli.
"The game in Perugia is always exiting for Trentino Volley, regardless of the logic of the standings, and we will face it well aware of the value it represents each time for our Club - explains coach Fabio Soli on the eve of the match - . We will challenge on its court the team that reached all its goals of the first part of the season and that is completing the recovery of an extraordinary player like Leon; just these two facts would be enough to show the calibre of the match that awaits us. We want to play the match to the best of our ability in order to try to grow further, both from the purely technical and tactical aspect and in terms of mentality."
Itas Trentino will report to Umbria later in the afternoon and will hold two practices at PalaBarton before the match: one on today's evening and one on Sunday morning. The Gialloblù are coming off eleven consecutive victories in the regular season (where they lost only once, last December 10) and as many wins in the first thirteen matches played in 2024. On this occasion Trentino Volley will play the official match number 1,027 in the history of its men's division and will go in search of the 718th success ever, the 421st in the regular season.
THE OPPONENTS Even if it cannot change the final hierarchies of the standings, Sunday's match is a highly anticipated one by Sir Susa Vim Perugia and its fans, who will fill the PalaBarton stands for the occasion. More than five thousand people are expected, five thousand fans who will try to push the host lineup toward the home victory that has been missing for exactly one month (January 24 against Taranto). In the meantime, the team coached by Angelo Lorenzetti (former Trentino coach, now in the Umbrian half-court, together with former Trentino players Candellaro, Colaci, Giannelli and Solé) has nonetheless achieved its third goal of the season (the Coppa Italia, after having secured the Supercoppa and the Club World Cup) and is preparing to compete all the way for the last one (the Scudetto), now with Wilfredo Leon on court. The most recent matches have allowed the Block Devils' coach to reintroduce him on the court with more continuity and the Cuban spiker with Polish passport has immediately offered important signs of his growing condition, as evidenced by the 19 points in the 2-3 against Verona, the 18 (with MVP title) scored in Cisterna and the 9 scored in Padua last Sunday. Perugia is the team that in the regular season has had the most prolific serve (130 aces in 20 games), thanks to great performers such as Semeniuk (33) and Plotnytskyi (24), and it is also second in the ranking of winning blocks (one point behind Verona and with three more blocks than Trento itself) mainly through its central pair Solé (40) and Flavio Gualberto (36). Sir Susa Vim has consistently moved up in the rankings in its previous ten home league matches, collecting 25 of the 30 points on offer.
PREVIOUS MATCHES There are fifty-three official confrontations between Trentino Volley and Sir Perugia, with positive balance for the Umbrians 29-24 also thanks to six wins in the last seven matches played. However, Trento won the first leg match 3-1 (played at home on Dec. 17 - with partials of 25-21, 25-23, 23-25 and 25-23 and Michieletto MVP) and recently has always sold its skin dearly in Umbria, as evidenced by the tie break victory in the penultimate confrontation (March 30, 2022) and the defeat in four sets after a great battle in the most recent previous one (Nov. 20, 2022). Overall, the yellow-blue team won six times in nineteen previous matches at PalaBarton; Perugia won the only neutral court match played this season: 3-1 on October 31, 2023 in Biella in the Del Monte Supercoppa Italiana semifinal. The player who has experienced the most on-court challenges between Trento and Perugia is Simone Giannelli: 34 with the yellow-blue jersey and 14 with the Umbrian jersey (total of 48). The second is Marko Podrascanin (38 - 20 with Perugia and 18 with Trento).
THE REFEREES The match will be directed by Giuseppe Curto (of Gorizia, in Serie A since 2013) and Andrea Puecher (of Rubano - Padua, active since 2003 and international since 2014), in their 13th and 12th matches of the season with Credem Banca SuperLega teams, respectively. The last precedent with Trentino Volley men's team for the Friulian whistle was the 3-1 success in Piacenza last January 21, while for the Venetian referee the most recent intersection was three days later (January 24, home success against Milan).
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 aired on television on Monday, February 26, 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