Trento, 01 February 2025

SuperLega, on Sunday in Veneto the 49th derby of Adige

The eighteenth round of the SuperLega Credem Banca 2024/25 regular season will take place entirely on Sunday, February 2. This round resumes after the previous weekend's Coppa Italia Final Four. The Itas Trentino men's team will be at the Pala Agsm AIM in Verona for the traditional Derby of the Adige, now in its forty-ninth edition. The match is set to start at 4 PM CET, with live commentary available on Radio Dolomiti and paid live streaming on the OTT platforms VBTV and DAZN.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO The yellow and blue team opens the month of February (during which it will play seven times in twenty-eight days) by facing the most logistically convenient away match, but also one of the most challenging commitments on paper remaining until the end of the regular season. Currently, they sit in second place, two points behind and with one game in hand compared to the league leaders, Perugia.
"Verona comes off a Coppa Italia Final Four that confirmed its exponential growth in recent times and will leverage the enthusiasm from having played the first final in its history in the upcoming match," explained coach Fabio Soli during the presentation. "For us, it was important to restart with momentum after the semifinal in Bologna, achieving a victory that only seemed straightforward on Thursday night against Brasov in the CEV Cup; a result but especially a performance that demonstrates how compact and determined the team is in pursuing the goals we still have ahead of us this season. We are expecting a match with high-level content, where much will depend on our balance in serving and receiving fundamentals and our ability to limit their attack, which, based on statistics, is among the best in our league."
The yellow and blue coach will only be without the fourth hitter spiker Bristot, who is suffering from shoulder pain, but will recover Magalini (one of four former players taking the court; the others are Pesaresi, Zingel, and Cortesia), who was out Thursday night due to a flu attack. On this occasion, Trentino Volley will play its 32nd official match of the season, the 1,075th overall, and will be looking for its 435th victory in regular season history.
THE OPPONENTS Rana Verona returns to play in front of its home crowd (which has responded exceptionally, reaching "sold out" status just a couple of days ago) after competing in the first Italian final in its history. The match lost only in a tie-break against Civitanova last weekend in Bologna was indeed a historic game for the Scaliger club, which will resume its league campaign on this occasion, currently sitting in fifth place with five points behind fourth-placed Piacenza and one point ahead of sixth-placed Milano. The victory in three sets against Modena in the last round ended a negative streak of two consecutive losses in the regular season (against Civitanova and at home against Allianz), reigniting the team of former coach Stoytchev, who will be without another former player, Dzavoronok, due to injury for the remainder of the season. To replace him, the Bulgarian coach can decide whether to use spiker Sani in the starting six, as happened in Bologna, or to insert opposite Jensen, shifting tournament top scorer Keita to the outside position due to his versatility in high-ball roles. The Malian is the player who has scored the most break points in the category (139), but he is not the only Veneto player featured in the top ten performance rankings; alongside him are hitter spiker Mozic (fifth attacker by weighted average), setter Abaev (tenth server by weighted average), middle blocker Cortesia (tenth blocker), and libero D’Amico (eighth receiver), confirming the absolute competitiveness of the entire Scaliger sextet.
THE BACKGROUND Thanks to the match on Sunday, Verona Volley joins Cisterna again in fifth place in the special ranking of opponents faced the most times in official matches by Trentino Volley: for a total of forty-nine matches. Only Civitanova (102), Modena (89), Piacenza (76) and Perugia (57) can boast more. The report is advantageous for 35-13 to the club via del Brennero, with Trento always winning in a maximum of four sets the last five official matches played: four at home (26 December 2022, 3 January 2024, 14 January 2024 and 10 November 2024) and one in Verona (5 November 2023). Itas Trentino has beaten the Venetian court in thirteen of the twenty-one matches previously played; Verona's last home victory dates back to 8 October 2022 (at the tie break) in a match that lasted two hours and thirty-seven minutes (all-time record for the match).
THE REFEREES The match will be refereed by Umberto Zanussi (from Treviso in Serie A since 2006) and Andrea Pozzato (from Bolzano, tenured referee since 2004), at ninth match of SuperLega match refereed together in their career. Only the South Tyrolean referee, Andrea Pozzato, in his ninth league appearance of the season, boasts previous precedents with the Adige derby, refereed the first time on 29th December 2011 in Trento (3-0 for the locals) and then again on 26th December 2022, matches played in the arena located in Fersina street (another three-set win for the hosts). Zanussi, on the other hand, is in his tenth direction of the season and will again referee Trento after the 3-0 home win against Milan on 26th December.
RADIO AND INTERNET The match will be reported live by Radio Dolomiti, Trentino Volleyball’s media partner. 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 two OTT platforms: VBTV and DAZN; there is a fee for both. A summary of the match will be broadcast on Monday, 3rd February 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