Trentino and Lube meet in the final battle for the Italian title

After 17 days, five matches and 16 sets, the SuperLega Credem Banca Finals will not go past Wednesday, when Itas Trentino and Cucine Lube Civitanova will meet for a fifth and last time to determine the 2022-2023 Italian champions.

Tied 2-2 in one of the most competitive best-of-five series in the history of the Italian League Finals, Trentino and Lube will bring everything to the court in a sold-out BLM Group Arena, in Trento, at 20:30 local time (18:30 UTC) to end the day as the new Scudetto champions.

· Watch all SuperLega Credem Banca matches live or on demand on VBTV.

Trentino have been in control of the series for most of the time and will now try to make good use of their homecourt advantage again to claim their fifth Italian title and the first since 2014-2015.

The team of head coach Angelo Lorenzetti won the opening match of the series 3-1 and almost got a victory on the road in game two, pushing Lube to five sets. Back in Trento for game three, the 2022 FIVB Men’s Club World Championship silver medallists were dominant, sweeping their opponents, but they couldn’t keep the same level of play in match four, when they could secure the title, but fell 3-1 on the road.

“Looking at how the playoffs played out this season, we definitely expected that we would need to play five matches in the Finals,” Lorenzetti reacted. “But it doesn’t matter what happened so far, we need to reset and give everything on Wednesday.”

With middle blocker Srećko Lisinac sidelined due to a back injury, Trentino will need more than ever that their high-scoring trio of Matey Kaziyski, Alessandro Michieletto and Daniele Lavia delivers in the most important match of the season.

Lube, on the other hand, enter the decisive encounter on the back of their best performance in the series so far after they topped Trentino 3-1 at home on Friday despite the absence of star opposite Ivan Zaytsev, who injured his shoulder during the series.

With Zaytsev on the sidelines, setter Luciano de Cecco has turned to Cuban outside hitter Marlon Yant, who has been a scoring machine for the three-time defending champions, who will be playing for their eighth national title.

“I think we proved during the playoffs that we’re never dead,” libero Fabio Balaso reflected. “Even if we struggle, if we are down in the series and if we’re not playing well and the opponents think we’re done, we always come back. That’s the mentality we need to have in Trento.”

Wednesday’s duel will be the 95^th encounter between the teams. Lube have had the most victories, with 53, against 41 from Trentino.

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