Trento, 28 September 2024

Starts the 2024/25 SuperLega: guide to Cisterna Volley-Itas Trentino on Sunday

This Sunday, September 29, in Lazio, Trentino Volley officially starts its 25th consecutive participation in the regular season of Italy's top men's volleyball league. The yellow-blue Club will start its 2024/25 SuperLega Credem Banca campaign with an away match against Cisterna di Latina, valid for the first round. The first serve is scheduled for 6 PM: live coverage on Radio Dolomiti and paid live streaming on OTT platforms VBTV and DAZN.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO After an incredibly long pre-season preparation lasting 58 days, the team was marked last weekend by the Supercoppa Final Four in Florence. This allowed them to play two official matches within 24 hours. The European Champions are now ready to return to the hunt for the Scudetto they wore until last May. They will start with eight of the fourteen players from the previous season's roster. The roster is once again entrusted to Fabio Soli, who previously coached in Lazio from 2021 to 2023. It includes many new faces, two of whom are immediately inserted into the starting six. Brazilian middle blocker Flavio, one of the standout players last weekend in Tuscany, will be in the lineup. Opposite Gabi Garcia will also replace Rychlicki in this case. The ankle injury Kamil sustained a week ago in the match against Monza will prevent him from participating in the away game. In his place, youth team outside hitter Davide Boschini (born in 2007, 202 cm) will join the team.
"The opening match, which was incredibly challenging, took place in Cisterna di Latina eleven months ago, also on the opening day of the season. It serves as a reminder of how difficult this appointment is for us," explained the coach of Itas Trentino. "It will be a battle, especially because we will face a team that has retained almost its entire roster from last season. They will have established systems in the transition game, thanks to a high-level setter like Baranowicz. We may encounter problems in our blocking and defensive fundamentals, as well as in reception, given the quality of the opponent's serve. To achieve a positive result, we need to pay close attention to our approach to the match and exercise a lot of patience. However, we know we can play good volleyball even on the first day of the regular season. The opportunity to build a significant path in the standings definitely hinges on an appointment like the one we are about to experience."
Sunday's match will be the 1,047th game in Trentino Volley’s history for the men's team, and the 567th away match, in which they have secured victory in 348 instances.
AWAY MATCH DEBUT FOR THE TENTH TIME In its now over twenty-year history, the Trentino Volley men's team has rarely played the first match of the regular season away from its home arena. The match in Cisterna di Latina on Sunday will be only the tenth time in twenty-five occasions. The record for away debuts is positive at 5-4, considering that victory was achieved in five instances. These include matches in Ravenna on October 27, 2013, and October 20, 2019 (both 0-3 victories), in Monza on October 28, 2015, with a score of 3-1, in Padova on September 27, 2020, also in four sets, and in Cisterna on October 22, 2023, with a score of 3-2. In the other four occasions, defeats were recorded. These include the match on October 15, 2000, in Parma (0-3 – the first-ever game in the club's history), on September 30, 2001, in Treviso (1-3), on September 20, 2003, in Latina (0-3 – the only previous debut in Lazio), and on September 30, 2007, in Cuneo (0-3).
A GOOD START IN SEVENTEEN OCCASIONS The season debut has brought smiles to the Trentino Volley men's team in seventeen of the previous twenty-four instances. In addition to the five away victories mentioned earlier, twelve home wins should also be added. The last one was on October 2, 2022, against Siena at the BLM Group Arena in Trento (now known as “ilT quotidiano Arena”). A team from Latina has also faced Trentino Volley in the opening round of the season during the 2009/10 season. In that case, the match was played in Trento, where the yellow-blue team defeated Andreoli Latina 3-1 (September 27, 2009).
THE OPPONENTS Sunday's match opens the second season of Cisterna's new course; after changing the company structure in the summer of 2023, with the transfer of rights from Top Volley Latina to the Club called Cisterna Volley, the Pontine Club ranked itself ninth in the last regular season and decided to confirm the historical team lineup to continue its journey. In the roster entrusted once again to Guillermo Falascaine (from Spain) there are nine confirmed players; two of them played in the Paris 2024 Olympics (Faure, the French opposite spiker with France and Nedeljkovic, the middle blocker with Serbia). Moreover, the five new additions, all quite young, will allow Cisterna to boast the second youngest roster in the championship; the most expected is surely Domenico Pace, a great libero player, who held the role of second libero in the last two seasons in Trento, scoring 46 appearances during the matches and winning the Scudetto and Champions League. Among others players, there are the middle blocker Diamantini and the hitter spikers Vivas (from Venezuelan who has already worked with Falasca in Narbonne during the season 2022/23) and Tarumi (from Japan). Initially, they should find little space, as they will be faced with two great protagonists of the previous year, the Turkish Bayram and Spanish Ramon (best hitter 2023/24).
THE BACKGROUND Cisterna (formerly Latina) is the fifth club faced by Trentino Volley more times in official matches in the history of the men’s team: in total forty-seven. Only Civitanova (99), Modena (87), Piacenza (75) and Perugia (55) can boast more. The report is in favor of Trentino Volley team for 37-10, but the Pontine team have won two of the last three previous home matches: 3-0 on March 20th, 2022 (final match of the 2021/22 regular season) and 3-2 on January 15th, 2023, after more than two hours and forty minutes of challenge. The most recent match in Lazio (Rome) ended at tie break but saw the victory of the gialloblù: on October 22th, 2023 with partials of 18-25, 25-15, 28-26, 17-25, 8-15 with Michieletto (21) and Faure (22) as best scorers. Right in front of the home public, Cisterna has been able to find success more often: seven times in twenty-four official matches.
THE REFEREES The volleyball match will be refereed by Stefano Caretti (from Guidonia - Roma, in Serie A since 2016) and Marco Zavater (from Rome, in top category since 2008). Caretti's last previous match with Trentino Volleyball was on January 21st (3-1 win in Piacenza), while Zavater's one was on April 14th (defeated at home against Monza in the 5th game of the Play Off semi finals).
RADIO, INTERNET AND TV The match will be reported live by Radio Dolomiti, Trentino Volleyball's media partner. Frequencies to listen to the regional network are avalaible on the website www.radiodolomiti.com, where it is also possible to follow the radio news live also in streaming. Also confirmed is live video streaming on two separate OTT platforms, "VBTV" and DAZN; there is a fee for both services. A summary of the match will be broadcast on Monday, September 30th at 9:40 p.m., on RTTR channel, Trentino Volleyball's media partner. Moreover, detailed updates will be managed by the website of the Volleyball League Serie A (www.legavolley.it) and www.trentinovolley.it itself, and always active on gialloblù social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/facebook, www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).

Trentino Volley Srl
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