Trento, 19 April 2024

Play Off, on Saturday in Milan game 2 of the 3rd place Final

Game 2 of the Final for the 3rd place Play Off Scudetto Credem Banca 2024 will be played on Saturday, April 20 at the Allianz Cloud (formerly PalaLido) in Milan. Itas Trentino will pay a visit to Allianz Milano, being ahead 1-0 in the series that will be played at the best of five games and that will assign the winner the qualification to the 2025 CEV Champions League. Kick-off is scheduled for 8:30 pm: live broadcast on Radio Dolomiti and streaming live on the OTT platform VBTV.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO After the precious comeback victory in game 1, the Italian champion team travels again to Lombardy to try to do the encore, in order to gain a double advantage and look to the second part of the series with a greater chance of success.
"Wednesday night’s success was very important, because after the disappointing elimination from the Scudetto race by Monza we had to restart the machine - explained coach Fabio Soli during the presentation of the match - . We succeeded, suffering, not always playing high-level volleyball, but putting everything we had on the court, and this makes me proud of my team and also confident towards game 2, which will certainly be even more difficult. However, I am convinced that we will win even in this circumstance; the players have shown that they always want to fight and give their best, no matter what".
Trento’s line-up completed their preparation for the match with Friday afternoon's training session at the ilT quotidiano Arena and Saturday morning's training session on court, where they will still be without Lavia (low-grade rectus abdominis injury sustained in the aftermath of the Play Off Semifinal against Monza). Saturday's will be match number 1,041 in the history of Trentino Volley men's team, the 45th of the season (34 victories and 10 defeats), the 562nd ever away match, where only in 215 cases has the team stumbled into defeat.
THE OPPONENTS Allianz Milano is ready to host Itas Trentino for the second time this season with the goal of winning the match to be able to play one more game (in that case the last) in front of their own crowd. The defeat at the tie break on Wednesday evening at the ilT quotidiano Arena will force Piazza's team to have to win at least one between game 2 and game 3 in order to keep their hopes of qualifying for the CEV Champions League, a tournament they have never taken part in before in ten years of activity. Matey Kaziyski, former Trantino Volley player, is the only one who is in doubt for this appointment, having suffered a calf muscle injury in the last training session before the series debut. Should he not be in the match, Mergarejo Hernandez will play in his place, diagonally next to Ishikawa.
BACKGROUND The total number of official matches between Trentino Volley and Powervolley Milano is twenty-five, with twenty-two victories for the yellow-blue team, who were last defeated on November 26, 2022 on home soil (1-3), before winning five in a row: 3-2 on February 19, 2023 in Milan and on February 26, 2023 in Rome, in the Coppa Italia semifinal; 3-1 on November 15 in Milan, 3-0 on January 24 in Trento, and 3-2 on April 17, again in Trentino. The ‘meneghini’ have only won once in front of their home crowd against Trento (February 3, 2021, 3-0), winning just four sets in the remaining nine matches. Saturday's match will be played for the seventh time at Milan's PalaLido (now Allianz Cloud); the other home matches had previously been played at Busto Arsizio's PalaYamamay (March 3, 2019, February 5, 2017 and December 30, 2017), at Assago's Forum (February 8, 2015) and at Castellanza's PalaBorsani (December 5, 2015).
THE SERIES Itas Trentino is ahead 1-0 in the series of the Final for the 3rd place Play Off Scudetto Credem Banca 2024 (which is played at the best of five games) by virtue of the 3-2 victory on April 17 at the ilT quotidiano Arena with set scores of 23-25, 25-18, 23-25, 25-19, and 15-11. On Saturday, game 2 will be played; it could be the only one played in Lombardy if Trento were to win the next two matches, this one and the next one (game 3) on Wednesday, April 24 in Trento (8:30 pm). Should Allianz win at least one of the next two matches, game 4 would also be necessary, which would be played again in Milan on Saturday, April 27 at 8:30 pm. Whoever wins three matches first earns qualification to the 2025 CEV Champions League.
THE REFEREES The match will be directed by Giuseppe Curto, first whistle from Gorizia, and Stefano Cesare, second referee from Rome. For Curto, in Serie A since 2013, it’s the seventeenth match of the season in the men's top league; last meeting with Trentino Volley was on April 11 in Monza (defeat in four sets). For Cesare, in Serie A since 1999 and international since 2010, the most recent Trentino Volley match among the sixteen directed this season was last weekend’s (home defeat against Monza at the tie break in game 5 of the semifinals).
RADIO, INTERNET, AND TV Game 1 will be reported live 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 it will also be possible to follow the live radio commentary via streaming.
The (fee-based) service on the OTT platform 'VBTV' is also confirmed. 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, April 22 at 9:30 pm on RTTR - Trentino Volley's media partner.
On the Internet, point-to-point updates will be provided by the Lega Pallavolo Serie A website (www.legavolley.it) and www.trentinovolley.it , and will always be active on yellow-blue social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office