Chaumont (France), 10 February 2025

2025 CEV Cup, on Tuesday in France (8 PM) the First Leg of the Quarterfinals

2025 CEV Cup once again takes center stage in Trentino Itas' calendar: on Tuesday, February 11 in Chaumont (France), the European Champion team will play the first leg of the quarterfinals, facing the home team, Chaumont VB 52. Starting time is scheduled for 8 PM Italian time: live broadcast on Radio Dolomiti.
TRENTINO ITAS UPDATE February's tour de force, which began with an away game in Verona and continued with Saturday's five-set match against Piacenza, now continues with an international trip for the gialloblù team. They face the first of two confrontations in the third-to-last round of the European competition. They will be without Bristot and Acquarone, who stayed in Trento due to different physical problems: a shoulder pain for the spiker and the flu for the setter. The team has arrived in France with twelve players on the roster.
"The competition is entering its final phase, the most complicated and difficult but at the same time the most beautiful, because the eight teams left in the race are all of high level," explained coach Fabio Soli. "Among them is certainly the team led by a master of this sport, Professor Prandi; Chaumont plays very effective volleyball both in the break point phase, thanks to an excellent serve and organization in block and defense, and in the side-out phase thanks to the qualities of their excellent setter, the American Worsley. It’s only the first leg, but it's an important moment in our journey in this competition: we necessarily need to achieve a positive result to approach the return match with more chances of qualification. It won't be easy, but we have all the means to do it.”
Trentino Itas will complete their preparation with training sessions this evening and Tuesday morning on the playing field. This will be the 233rd international match in Trentino Volley's history, the 147th away game, and the 43rd in the CEV Cup, where they have achieved victory in thirty-seven cases so far.
EIGHTH TRIP TO FRANCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE GIALLOBLU Trentino Volley is currently on its eighth trip to France, returning across the Alps a little more than fourteen months since the last time. The most recent previous visit to this country was a trip to Tours on November 29, 2023, for the second match of the group stage of the 2024 CEV Champions League, which was later won. The first-ever trip took place on November 11, 2008, in Beauvais (victory in three sets) and represents the historic external debut of the Gialloblù Club in the highest continental competition. In its history, Trento has also played in Cannes (on February 16, 2022) and three other times in Tours: November 1, 2012, December 16, 2015, and April 15, 2017 (in the CEV Cup final, then lost in the golden set played immediately after). They have suffered three defeats in seven matches played in French territory, one of which was against Chaumont, on March 14, 2018, in that case in Reims.
THE OPPONENTS Chaumont VB 52, a team representing the city of 24,000 inhabitants, the capital of Haute-Marne in northeastern France, will mark its sixth participation in the CEV Cup on this occasion, having "dropped" from the 2025 CEV Champions League, in which they recently finished the group stage in third place in Pool E. They began participating in international competitions in the 2013/14 season, with three appearances in the top continental competition (2018, 2019, and 2025) and three in the Challenge Cup. Their trophy cabinet includes a national title, won in 2017 with a 3-0 victory in the single final match against Toulouse, two French Super Cups (2017 and 2021), and one French Cup (2022). In 2017, they also came close to winning in Europe, reaching the final of the Challenge Cup, which they lost to Novy Urengoy. Last season, they stopped at the semifinals of the French league playoffs, currently holding the top spot in the standings after eighteen rounds, with 39 points and thirteen victories, the latest a three-set win over Narbonne on Saturday evening. A significant figure in the club's rise to the top of French volleyball has been Italian coach Silvano Prandi, who previously coached Trento from 2003 to 2005 for 61 official matches and has been leading the team since 2015.The current roster includes young national talents such as the spiker Henno (son of Hubert, a former libero for Roma, Cuneo, and Macerata) and the opposite Toledo, as well as foreign players like Americans Holdaway (middle blocker), Pasteur (spiker), and Worsley (setter), Finnish Suihkonen, and German Maase (former Friedrichshafen player). The Chaumont VB 52 roster: 1. Joseph Worsley (setter), 2. Theo Durand (libero), 3. Shane Holdaway (middle blocker), 4. Mathis Henno (spiker), 5. Lohan Lafaivre (spiker), 7. Niko Suihkonen (spiker), 8. Cheikh Diop (opposite), 9. Pierre Toledo (opposite), 10. Nathan Lietzke (setter), 15. Josef Polak (middle blocker), 16. Lukas Maase (middle blocker), 17. Jacob Pasteur (spiker), 19. Sebastian Closter (libero). Coach Silvano Prandi.
FORMULA OF THE COMPETITION The 2025 CEV Cup includes seven double rounds (first and second leg) of knockout matches (Round of 32, Round of 16, Round of 8, Play Offs - already played, Quarter Finals, Semi-finals and Final): the team that obtains the highest number of points over the two matches passes the round, awarded as in the league: 3 for a 3-0 or 3-1 victory, 2 for success at tie break, 1 for defeat at tie break (golden set at 15 in case of a tie on points).Whoever passes the round will face the winner of the match between Ljubljana and Ziraat Ankara (first leg scheduled for Wednesday evening in Slovenia) in the semifinals. At the top of the table, the quarter-final matches are Fenerbahce-Rzeszow and Roeselare-Tours (first legs also scheduled for Wednesday).
THE BACKGROUND Tuesday's match will be the third ever meeting in history between the two clubs, who have faced each other twice in the round of 16 of the 2018 edition of the CEV Champions League: the balance is one victory on each side; in Reims on 14 March 2018 the French won at tie break, while in Trento six days later the Gialloblù won 3-0, thus securing qualification for the next round. Against French teams Trentino Volley's record is eleven victories in fourteen matches overall, also taking into account the eight matches played against Tours and the two each played against Beauvais and Cannes.
REFEREES The match will be refereed by Robin Schoenmakers, first Belgian referee from Antwerp and by Jennifer Hesse (from Oberursel, Germany). Neither of them has a previous record with Trentino Volley.
RADIO AND INTERNET  The match will be reported live with continuous interactions with France by Radio Dolomiti, Trentino Volleyball’s media partner, from 8:10 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 and the report of the match also in streaming, in the section “on air”. To follow the evolution point by point of the match, it will be possible to consult the official website of the CEV at www.cev.eu/match-centres/2025-european-cups/cev-volleyball-cup-2025-men/ccm-77-chaumont-vb-52-v-trentino-itas/, which will provide the live score, or that of Trentino Volley www.trentinovolley.it which will also offer the chronicle set by set a few minutes after the conclusion of each individual partial. 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