Trento, 05 April 2025

2025 Playoffs Scudetto, semifinal series starts on Sunday

The SuperLega Credem Banca 2025 Scudetto Playoff Semifinals will start this upcoming weekend. Itas Trentino will face Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza in a best-of-five series, with three matches to be played in Trento thanks to their superior placement in the 2024/25 regular season. Game 1 is scheduled for Sunday, April 6, at 6 PM at the ilT Quotidiano Arena: live coverage will be available on RAI Sport, Radio Dolomiti, and the OTT streaming platform VBTV.
HERE ITAS TRENTINO Ten days after the conclusion of the quarterfinal against Cisterna Volley, the yellow-and-blue team is back on the court to face the Emilian squad in a battle for a spot in the Final.
"We are facing an exciting and wide-open semifinal series, where two teams with different technical and individual characteristics will compete," explained coach Fabio Soli as he introduced the matchup. "Piacenza is a team with great experience, boasting top-level serving and attacking abilities. On our side of the net, we will need to bring out the best in ourselves because, at this stage of the Playoffs, every match is decided by the smallest details. Creating opportunities will be our main goal, combined with a clear-minded ability to make the most of them. I am confident that the challenging moments we've experienced recently will give us an extra push."
The Trentino coach has all fourteen members of the roster available, who will complete their preparation with training sessions this afternoon and Sunday morning at the ilT Quotidiano Arena. Game 1 will be the forty-sixth match of the season, and the 1,090th official match in the history of Trentino Volley men's team. For Bartha, Bristot, and Pellacani, this will be their absolute debut in a Scudetto Playoff Semifinal. Michieletto, on the other hand, is the player in the current roster with the highest number of matches wearing the Trentino jersey at this stage of the tournament (19 games across the four previous series).
17TH SCUDETTO PLAYOFF SEMIFINAL For Trentino Volley, the 17th Scudetto Playoff Semifinal in its 22 participations will commence this Sunday—the 16th in the past 17 years. The yellow-and-blue team has advanced to the final nine times, with the most recent occasion being in the 2023 edition, overcoming Piacenza 3-2. In total, the Club from via del Brennero has played 158 matches in the Scudetto Playoffs, achieving 94 victories (64 of them at home). The player with the highest number of semifinal matches for Trentino is Matey Kaziyski, who reached 35 in 2023.
THE OPPONENTS Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza returns to the penultimate stage of the bracket two years after their last appearance; Sunday marks their second-ever Scudetto Playoff Semifinal. For the past six years, the club has carried forward the legacy of Copra Volley, which notably won a championship in 2009, defeating Trentino Volley. Destiny seems to intertwine Piacenza volleyball with the yellow-and-blue club, as Trentino has eliminated the Emilian team in three of the four previous Playoff participations. Coached by Ljubomir Travica (who replaced Anastasi in mid-February), the team will aim to reverse this trend while maintaining their positive streak in the current bracket, where they have won all their matches so far (three victories—two away and one at home). Their strategy relies on the scoring prowess of hitters Mandiraci and Maar (who combined for 94 points in the series against Verona, won 3-0 in the quarterfinals), the Cuban middle blocker Simon (a familiar opponent of Trento in four of the last five Playoff editions), and the experience of French setter Brizard. The two former Trentino Volley players featured are Gianluca Galassi, who began his career and completed the entire youth development program with the club, and Uros Kovacevic, who wore the yellow-and-blue jersey from 2017 to 2020, tallying 113 appearances and 1,518 points, with triumphs in a Club World Championship (2018) and a CEV Cup (2019).
THE BACKGROUND The challenge between Trentino Volley and the Piacenza’s city team has very deep roots, as well as the statistics: 77 are the matches already in the archive (only Civitanova with 103 and Modena with 89 boast a greater number), with a detail that speaks of 44 games of regular season, 28 in the Play Off Scudetto (between the Finals of the 2008, 2009, 2013 editions, the semi-finals in 2023 and the quarterfinals in 2005, 2021 and 2022), 3 in Coppa Italia (finals 2023, semifinals 2014 and quarter-finals 2015) and 2 in CEV Cup (quarterfinals 2017). The balance is favorable to Trento for a 53-24, also thanks to the long streak made in recent years; since Piacenza returned to the top national championship (2019/20 season), it has won only six times in twenty-three official matches. The most recent match was played in Trento on March 8, with the hosts winning the regular season tie break, which repeated the success of the first leg (3-1 in Emilia on November 17). Overall, the Club of via del Brennero won thirty-four out of the forty-one previous official matches fought with Piacenza within friendly walls
THE SERIES The semi-finals, as well as the finals, are played at the best of five matches. The series potentially develops on a long calendar over the course of eighteen days: after match 1, the teams will move to Piacenza for match 2 scheduled for Sunday, April 13 at 18 o'clock, while match 3 will be again scheduled at ilT quotidiano Arena for Wednesday 17 (hours 20.30). Matches 4 and 5 will most likely be played, if necessary, on Sunday April 20 in Emilia (at 18) and then on Thursday April 24 at 8.30 pm in Trento respectively. Whoever will pass the round will find in the final the winning team of Perugia-Civitanova, a confrontation that starts tonight at 20.30.
THE REFEREES Alessandro Cerra (from Bologna, in Serie A since 2014) and Stefano Cesare (from Rome, who worked as a referee since 1999 and internationally since 2010) will be the referees of the match, the seventh SuperLega match in their career, and the first seasonal one. Cerra is in his fourteenth personal referee position in the 2024/25 championship and finds Itas Trentino again after they won the tie break in Perugia (January 12), lost 1-3 in Civitanova (December 1), won four sets in Milan (October 13) and the two recent 3-0 home wins on Cisterna (February 19 and March 8). Cesare is on his nineteenth season in SuperLega and reencounters Trento two months after the last match (and particularly a match with Piacenza, won 3-2 at home on February 8). He has already been the referee of seven previous matches between Trento and Piacenza, with five yellow-blue and two Emilian victories. Cerra, in his curriculum, only has two matches among the teams, both related to the calendar year 2023 and both won by Trentino Volley 3-1 (on April 16 in Emilia, November 11 at home).
TV, RADIO AND INTERNET The match will be a global media event, enjoying live
footage on any type of media. It will be broadcasted on tv by RAI Sport, channel on the digital terrestrial platform at number 58, and also on the "Rai Play" App.
Live news are scheduled on Radio Dolomiti, media partner of Trentino Volley. The frequencies to listen to the regional network can be found on www.radiodolomiti.com, where it will also be possible to follow the radio news in live streaming.
Live feed on the OTT platform "VBTV" has been confirmed; the service is paid. For more information on its use, see https://it.volleyballworld.com/volleyball-tv-it.
On TV, a summary of the match will be broadcast also Monday, April 7 at 21.45 approximately, on RTTR - TV partner of Trentino Volley.
Over on  the internet, point-by-point updates will be handled by the website of Lega Volleyball Serie A (www.legavolley.it), by www.trentinovolley.it, and will always be active on the yellow-blue social networks (www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and www.trentinovolley.it/twitter).
TICKET OFFICE The match is included in the 2024/25 season ticket. You can buy tickets for the single game at any time on the internet, by clicking https://trentinovolley.vivaticket.it/it/event/semifinali-play-off-gara-1-itas-trentino-vs-piacenza/263977, or directly on Sunday afternoon at the counters of the ilT quotidiano Arena, active from 5 p.m. onwards, the same time that the entrances to the arena will be opened.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office