Trento, 21 December 2024

SuperLega, on Sunday in Taranto for the first match of the return round

The thirteenth round of the 2024/25 SuperLega Credem Banca regular season will be played this weekend. On Sunday, December 22, Itas Trentino will take the stage at PalaMazzola in Taranto for the first match of their return round, hosted by Gioiella Prisma. Starting time is scheduled for 5 PM, with live commentary on Radio Dolomiti and live streaming (paid) on the OTT VBTV platform.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO The European Champions are preparing to play the last of nine consecutive away games faced in the first three weeks of December. After matches in Portugal, Marche, Brazil, and Sardinia, Sunday will be the time to take the field in Apulia and dive back into the championship atmosphere after having faced many international commitments in a row (seven between the CEV Cup and the Club World Championship).
"We return to play a SuperLega match after more than twenty days away from this stage, and we want to do it in the best possible way, even though we know that the match awaiting us is far from easy for many reasons, not only related to logistics or the very tight schedule of the past few weeks," said coach Fabio Soli during the match presentation. "Taranto is indeed a very competitive team, especially at home, with strong serving and attacking fundamentals that can make them more challenging. Therefore, it will be necessary to gather our physical and mental energies to present ourselves at our current best and try to achieve a favorable result that allows us to positively resume our league campaign, which was interrupted at the beginning of December."
For this match, the technical staff will have to do without Jan Kozamernik (recovering in Trento after surgery due to a cervical disc herniation), but they will be able to count on all the other thirteen players who have participated in all the away games in December. For Trentino Volley, the match in Taranto will be the twenty-third of the season (with a record of sixteen wins and six losses), the 1,067th overall for the men's team, and will see the club from Via Brennero seeking their 743rd victory ever, possibly the 358th away win (out of 579 games).
THE OPPONENTS After finishing the first round in ninth place (tied with Padova) with ten points in the standings, accumulated through three victories in eleven matches, Gioiella Prisma Taranto is looking for their first satisfaction of the return round, supported by a consistently strong home performance. The team, coached by Dante Boninfante (a former assistant coach of Lorenzetti on the yellow-blue bench from 2017 to 2020), has gained points in four of the five matches played this season at PalaMazzola, also achieving significant wins against teams like Milan (defeated 3-0) and more recently Civitanova (overcome in a tie-break). The statistics from the first twelve days of SuperLega show that the Apulians are among the most efficient blocking teams in the entire category (93 winning blocks: only Perugia, Monza, and Cisterna have more), thanks also to two excellent interpreters of this fundamental skill, such as middle blockers Alonso and D'Heer (another former player along with Lanza). The top scorer for the Ionics is opposite hitter Gironi (absent in the first leg match), who has already scored 162 points and is therefore the main offensive outlet for Zimmermann's play, who in recent weeks has often seen changes in his outside hitter trio, with both Held and Canadian Hofer (also capable of playing as an opposite if needed) able to start alongside Lanza.
THE BACKGROUND The match Prisma Taranto - Trentino Volley came back on the scene during the 2021/22 season, almost twelve years after the last time. In fact, between 2000 and 2010 the two clubs faced each other fourteen times, exclusively in matches valid for the regular season of the then Serie A1 championship. The overall report includes the twenty-one matches played and is 14-7 for the gialloblù Club, which won twelve of the fourteen most recent matches, including six of the previous three regular seasons (2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24) and the one of the first leg of this championship: a 3-0 victory on 6th October 2024 in Trento, with 25-13, 25-18, 26-24 sets and Flavio as mvp (11 points). During the Ionians’ home match, Trentino Volley won five of the ten matches played, conquering the PalaFiom (another facility in the Apulian city) with a 3-1 victory on 15th March 2008 and then conquering the PalaMazzola on 24th January 2010 (in three sets), on 24th November 2021 (with a 3-1 victory), on 5th February 2023 and on 6th January 2024 (again with the maximum advantage). In all the other cases there were defeats: two for 0-3, one for 1-3 and two for 2-3.
THE REFEREES The match will be refereed by Rocco Brancati (from Città di Castello - Perugia, in Serie A since 2015) and Maurizio Canessa (from Bari, in Serie A since 2009), at first match of SuperLega refereed together in their career. Brancati is in his fourth match of the season in the championship and will meet Trentino Volley after the home loss in three sets  against Milan of the  last 24 April; he has already refereed a Taranto-Trento match, on last 13th February 2022: a 3-0 home victory for the gialloblù.  Canessa is at his fifth seasonal supervision of the regular season (one of these is about Itas Trentino: a 3-1 victory against Verona on 10th November) and in his CV he has already directed once the match between the two clubs (on 24th November 2021, precisely at PalaMazzola: a gialloblù’s victory in four sets).
RADIO AND INTERNET The match will be reported live by Radio Dolomiti, Trentino Volleyball’s media partner, from 5:05 pm. Frequencies to listen to the regional network are available 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 VBTV platform; there is a fee for the service.A summary of the match will be broadcast on Monday, 23rd December 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
Press Office