18/04/2014 10:00
Juantorena rules out return to Trento
News from the clubs
Ankara, Turkey, April 18, 2014. Last year four star players of TRENTINO Volley were transferred for one season to Turkey and more specifically to Halkbank ANKARA. Matey Kaziyski, Raphael Vieira de Oliveira, Mitar Tzourits, and Osmany Juantorena were all due to spend one season in Turkey’s capital city and the fans in Trento held the hope their heroes would return back “home” one day.
It looks like their wish won’t be fulfilled: it was recently rumoured that Raphael will be leaving Turkey at the end of the season but to move back to Brazil to play there for Taubaté thereby joining forces with his current teammate at Halkbank, Mauricio Luiz de Souza, as well as with triple world champion Dante Amaral who spent the last season in Japan with the Panasonic Panthers.
Though it still has to be clarified whether Kaziyski and his long-time mentor Radostin Stoytchev will stay in Ankara, Osmany Juantorena recently announced on Twitter that any comeback to Trento shall be ruled out. “It looks like it will be very difficult for me to wear once again Trento’s jersey! It still remains the team I love the most. I am sorry about that” he tweeted thereby prompting speculations that the fans of Italy’s most decorated team of the last decade won’t get anymore the chance to cheer on one of their favourite heroes.
Some supporters from Trentino had even travelled to Ankara last March 22-23 to attend the Final Four Tournament of the CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League and be once more close to these players who still have a special place in everyone’s heart (click here to read the story). After journalists and media alike started speculating on Osmany’s plans for the future, Juantorena responded with another tweet saying: “If I am not going back to Trento, it is not because I do not want it, but because the conditions are not there.”
The transfers of Kaziyski, Raphael, Tzourits and Juantorena to Halkbank made headlines last summer and sparked fears that TRENTINO would gradually dismantle their team. This eventually did not happen and even with a very young and rather inexperienced roster, the team could make the Playoffs 6 of the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League before losing there to eventual winners Belogorie BELGOROD of Russia. TRENTINO’s season will now continue with the FIVB Men’s Club World Championship in Belo Horizonte, Brazil following the wild-card the club received by FIVB and the local organisers.
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