27/03/2021 10:23
Some numbers about TRENTINO’s journey from Round 1 to the Super Finals
CEV Champions League Volley 2021 - Men
Trento, Italy, March 27, 2021. Earlier this week, TRENTINO Itas of Italy completed a truly impressive triumphal march from the 1st Round all the way to the Super Finals of the CEV Champions League Volley 2021 – where they will be playing Grupa Azoty KEDZIERZYN KOZLE of Poland.
TRENTINO’s journey in the competition started back in September with a home 1st Round ‘bubble’ and has already encompassed as many as 13 matches, thus accounting for the longest series of games played on the European stage in their 10 participations in the CEV Champions League. Actually, TRENTINO only became eligible to contest the Champions League after a change to the rules imposed by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in a premature and abrupt end to many national leagues last season. TRENTINO had finished the regular season in fourth place ‘only’, thus initially missing on one of three spots available for Italian teams in the competition.
TRENTINO have made it to a European final at least every second year over the last six seasons. Curiously, this has usually happened in odd years. Back in 2015, TRENTINO lost the CEV Cup final at the Golden Set to Dinamo MOSCOW of Russia. Two years later, they lost another Golden Set to TOURS VB (FRA) in the CEV Cup finals, before rebounding to seize the CEV Cup title in 2019 against Galatasaray ISTANBUL of Turkey. The only exception to the ‘odd year rule’ is 2016, when TRENTINO lost the CEV Champions League gold medal match to Zenit KAZAN. This means that TRENTINO has contested a European final five times over the last seven years, failing to achieve this feat in 2018 only – since in 2020 the pandemic resulted in a sudden end to all European competitions.
Setter Simone Giannelli and libero Carlo De Angelis are the only players still on the roster to have contested the 2016 gold medal match in Krakow. Both obviously hope for a different outcome of the ‘big match’ scheduled for May 1 in Verona. TRENTINO will return to play a title-deciding match in the city of Romeo and Juliet for the first time after in 2011 they lost 0-3 to Bre Banca Lannutti CUNEO in the final of the Italian cup.
The Super Final will represent an opportunity to cross paths with Nikola Grbic, a former setter of TRENTINO, who now coaches the Polish team from Kedzierzyn-Kozle. Back in 2008 and 2009, Grbic helped TRENTINO claim the first two major titles in the history of the team, i.e. the Italian league and Champions League, respectively. On the other hand, two of the current TRENTINO star players, Nimir Abdel-Aziz and Dick Kooy, played for Kedzierzyn-Kozle in 2014/2015, when they lost to the Italian team in the semis of the CEV Cup.
This past Wednesday, a 2-3 loss to Sir Sicoma Monini PERUGIA ended a 13-match winning streak for TRENTINO – the second longest for the team in the CEV Champions League after they swept 15 matches in a row between November 2008 and January 2010.
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