Trento, 04 July 2025

2025/26 Season, notes and curiosities About the new Trentino Volley Roster

With the official signing of French opposite Théo Faure, Trentino Volley has completed the Itas Trentino men's team roster for the 2025/26 season. Below are notes and statistical curiosities related to the lineup that will be entrusted to head coach Marcelo Méndez starting in October.

FOURTEEN. The operations completed in recent weeks confirm the club's strategy adopted over the past three seasons: starting the new campaign with a fourteen-man roster, giving the coaching staff a substitute for every role in the starting six. The squad will include two setters (Acquarone and Sbertoli), two opposites (Faure and Gabi Garcia), two liberos (Laurenzano and Pesaresi), four outside hitters (Bristot, Lavia, Michieletto and Ramon), and four middle blockers (Bartha, Flavio Gualberto, Sandu and Torwie).

FOUR NEW FACES. There are only four changes compared to the roster that won the Italian Championship on May 7 in Civitanova Marche, all concentrated in the offensive department. The new signings include one opposite (Faure), two middle blockers (Sandu and Torwie), and one outside hitter (Ramon). Only during the summer markets of 2011, 2012, 2016, and 2017 had Trentino Volley recorded so few incoming transfers in its history.

AVERAGE AGE. The Gialloblù roster will have an average age of 25.1 years, slightly higher than last season’s 24.5, simply because the ten returning players are now a year older. The youngest player will be middle blocker Sandu, who turns 18 on September 14, while the most experienced will remain libero Pesaresi, aged 34. Five players were born in 1999 — Acquarone, Faure, Garcia, Lavia, and Ramon — while six were born after 2000: Bartha, Bristot, Laurenzano, Michieletto, Sandu, and Torwie. Only in four of the 25 completed seasons has Trentino Volley fielded a squad with a lower average age.

AVERAGE HEIGHT. The replacement of Pellacani (210 cm) with Sandu (200 cm) has inevitably lowered the team's average height, which now stands at 196.9 cm compared to 197.5 cm last season. Michieletto remains the tallest player on the roster at 211 cm, while Laurenzano is the shortest at 177 cm. Among the new arrivals, Torwie's height (208 cm) stands out, while Ramon is relatively shorter at 194 cm. In 17 of the 25 seasons already played, Trentino Volley has had a taller roster. The tallest ever was the 2015/16 team — Champions League runners-up — with an average of 200.2 cm.

FOREIGN PLAYERS. The 2025/26 squad will be more international, with six foreign players compared to four last season. The most international area of the court will be positions 1 and 2, with both opposites coming from abroad (USA and France) — a configuration already seen on eight previous occasions. The setter and libero roles continue to be filled exclusively by Italian players, as in recent years. In the outside hitter position, the presence of a foreign athlete returns with Ramon, something that hadn’t happened since the 2022/23 season with Dzavoronok.

FROM CISTERNA. Half of the new signings were acquired from Cisterna Volley: opposite Théo Faure and outside hitter Jordi Ramon, both of whom faced Trentino Volley in the quarterfinals of the most recent Scudetto Playoffs. The only other precedents of a double signing from the same club also involve Lazio-based teams: Tofoli and Fortunato from Roma Volley in the summer of 2001, and Urnaut and Van de Voorde from Latina in 2016. A similar case occurred in 2010 with Colaci and Della Lunga from Verona, although one of the two was returning from a loan spell.

NATIONAL TEAM PLAYERS. Ten of the fourteen players on the new roster are regular members of their respective senior national teams. Lavia, Laurenzano, Michieletto, and Sbertoli play for Italy, Flavio for Brazil, Garcia for the United States, Bartha for Romania, Faure for France, Torwie for Germany, and Ramon for Spain. As a result, pre-season training — which will begin shortly after mid-August — will start with a very limited group of just four players: Acquarone, Bristot, Pesaresi, and Sandu.

Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office