Trento, 28 February 2024

Champions League, on Thursday the return leg of the quarter finals

The return match of the quarter-finals of the 2024 CEV Champions League, the penultimate of two double-elimination rounds before the SuperFinals (May 4th or 5th, at a venue yet to be made official), will be played on Thursday February 29th at the ilT quotidiano Arena in Trento. Trentino Itas will host the German team of the Berlin Recycling Volleys with the aim of confirming the superiority already shown in the 3-0 victory in the first match played in Germany a week ago. Kick-off scheduled for 8.30 pm; live on Radio Dolomiti and DAZN.
HERE TRENTINO ITAS The Gialloblù return to play a home match in the Champions League a month and a half after the last one ( January 17th, the only home loss against Rzeszow - at the tie break), with the aim of obtaining another positive result to qualify for the semi-finals of the competition, an intermediate goal achieved twice in the last three editions and in total already obtained on seven occasions.
"In Berlin, in the first match played a week ago, we were very good at expressing a high level of volleyball that steered the score in our favour in every set. We will have to be able to do the same on Thursday if we want to pass the round," explained coach Fabio Soli . "Our opponents are a high-level team that has already been able to beat Tours at home in a match similar to the one we will play here; even if the 3-0 result obtained in Germany is an absolutely promising result, we must avoid tension drops and repeat our determined and well-applied game from the very first exchanges. Lowering our guard could in fact be detrimental".
Trentino Itas arrives at the appointment on the strength of thirteen victories in fourteen home matches of the season and six wins in seven matches played in the 2024 CEV Champions League. The coach of the Italian champions will recover Rychlicki for the occasion (who was purposely rested on Sunday in Perugia) and will therefore have all fourteen players available.
Against Berlin Trentino Volley will play the 217a international match in its history (balance 174 wins, 41 losses), the 131a ever in the Champions League. In front of its own public in this competition the Club of via Trener has played a total of 59 matches, losing only 9 of them.
THE OPPONENTS The Berlin Recycling Volleys come to Trento a little less than two years after the last time (10 March 2022) with the need to win four sets and leave a maximum of just one to the hosts in order to qualify for the semifinals, which they only achieved in the 2015 edition, as the organising club of the Final Four. The Germans arrive at the appointment after a 3-2 home victory over Lüneburg (another team that took part in the Champions League this season, before moving on to the CEV Cup); in the Bundesliga with one round to go, Banks' orange-blacks are at the top of the standings but will have to defend their two-point advantage over Helios on the last day. The Berlin coach for the return match could reintroduce in the starting six the Australian central Mote (who last Wednesday had played only the third set); to replace him in all probability should be the Slovenian Stalekar. The Berlin Recycling Volleys' roster: 1. Adam Kowalski (l), 2. Satoshi Tsuiki (l), 3. Robert Taht (sp), 4. Timo Tammemaa (mb), 5. Nehemiah Mote (mb), 6. Johannes Tille (st), 9. Timothèe Carle (sp), 10. Daniel Malescha (o), 11. Cody Kessel (sp), 12. Saso Stalekar (mb), 13. Ruben Schott (sp), 14. Leon Dervisaj (st), 17. Marek Sotola (o), 21. Tobias Krick (mb). Coach Joel Banks.
TRENTINO ITAS QUALIFIES FOR THE SEMIFINALS IF... Trentino Itas needs to win (at least) two sets in Thursday night's match in order to advance to the semifinals; thanks to their 3-0 win in the first leg in Berlin (25-12, 25-17, 25-17), the yellow-blue will be able to lose in the tie break to avoid the golden set hypothesis, which will only be played if the Germans win at most four sets. Whoever gets through the round will face the winner of the quarter-final between Civitanova and Halkbank Ankara, who will experience their second act in the Marche this evening after the first leg won 3-1 in Turkey by Cucine Lube.
THE FORMULA AND THE OTHER MATCHES Thursday's match will be valid for the return leg of the quarter-finals of the 2024 CEV Champions League; the names of the four teams that will play in the Finals will emerge from this series of matches already on Thursday evening. The team that obtains the most points in the doubleheader qualifies for the next round; points are awarded as in the league: 3 for a 3-0 or 3-1 victory, 2 for success in the tie break, 1 for defeat in the tie break. The Final will be played on Saturday 4 or Sunday 5 May at a venue yet to be determined. The other three matches are all played this evening: Ziraat Bankasi Ankara (at 5 p.m., first leg 3-1), Jastrzebski- Piacenza (6pm, first leg 2-3) and Civitanova-Halkbank Ankara (at 8.30 p.m., first leg 3-1).
BACKGROUND Seven official matches have already been played between Trentino Volleyball and Berlin Recycling Volleys, with the balance in favour of the yellow-blue club at 5-2. The only victories of the Germans are related to two of the four matches played in Germany in total: 3-0 on December 18th 2013 (group phase match) and 3-2 on 16 March 2022 (return match of the quarter-finals). In Trento, the team from the capital has won only one set in three appearances, that of the 3-1 home win on 24 October 2013; thereafter there were the 3-0 wins on March 3rd 2021 and March 10th 2022, in matches right from the quarter-finals. The total balance with German teams, also taking into account matches played with Friedrichshafen and Haching, is twelve confrontations with nine wins and three defeats.
THE REFEREE The match will be directed by the Portuguese Ricardo Ferreira, first whistle from Porto, and the Serbian Dejan Rogic, second from Belgrade. Both have previous records against Trentino Volleyball: two for Ferreira (3-0 home win against Cannes on January 13th  2022 and 0-3 home win against Perugia on February 10th of the same year) and one for Rogic (tie-break defeat in Reims against Chaumont in the first leg of the 2018 Champions Leauge round of 16, played on March 15th 2018).
RADIO AND INTERNET The match will be broadcast live on Radio Dolomiti, Trentino Volleyball's radio partner, starting at 8:30 pm. The frequencies to tune in to the regional network can be found on the website www.radiodolomiti.com, where it will also be possible to listen to the live radio commentary in streaming.
Live video streaming is also provided on DAZN, a platform available on a wide range of Internet-connected devices, including Smart TVs, PCs, smartphones, tablets and game consoles. Paid service, which requires registration; for more information www.dazn.com/it-IT/help .
 On the Internet, point-to-point updates will also be provided by the CEV website (https://www.cev.eu/match-centres/2024-european-cups/cev-champions-league-volley-2024-men/clvm-098-trentino-itas-v-berlin-recycling-volleys), by www.trentinovolley.it and will also be active on the yellow-blue social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
TICKET OFFICE The match is only included in the full season ticket type. Tickets for the single match can still be purchased at any time on the Internet by clicking https://trentinovolley.vivaticket.it/it/event/cev-champions-league-2024-trentino-itas-berlin-recycling/230390. The coupons will also be available on Thursday at the ilT quotidiano Arena cash desks, which will be open from 7.30 p.m., the same time at which the arena entrances will also open.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office