Club World Champs serial winners Trentino and Sada Cruzeiro play for gold

The two most successful teams in the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship history, Italy’s Trentino Itas and Brazil’s Sada Cruzeiro will battle for the title of the 2024 edition of the tournament on Sunday, at the Sabiazinho Arena, in Uberlândia, Brazil.

Five-time champions Trentino and four-time winners Sada Cruzeiro will feature in the tournament’s gold medal match, which is scheduled for 14:30 local time (17:30 GMT). Earlier, at 11:00 local time (14:00 GMT), Italy’s Cucine Lube Civitanova and Iran’s Foolad Sirjan Iranian will play for bronze.

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It will be the second time that Italians and Brazilians meet in the tournament’s gold medal match, with Trentino having triumphed in 2012 to secure the fourth of their five titles. The teams played on Thursday during pool play in Uberlândia and Sada Cruzeiro came out on top, winning in the tie-breaker.

In order to get to the last day of the tournament playing for gold, Trentino had to overcome Italian rivals Lube in Saturday’s second semifinal encounter, getting revenge for a defeat suffered in the Superlega less than two weeks ago.

In Uberlândia, the reigning European champions gave their opponents no chance, overcoming a difficult moment in the second set to triumph 3-0 (25-20, 28-26, 25-19).

Opposite Kamil Rychlicki was the team’s top scorer with 13 points (12 kills, one block), followed by star outside hitter Alessandro Michieletto, with 12 (11 kills, one ace), and Brazilian national team middle blocker Flavio Gualberto, with 11 (eight kills, three blocks).

“Coming back to win the second set was huge for us,” head coach Fabio Soli reacted. “The team showed great maturity and patience to handle that difficult moment. We had the lead for most of the time but never relaxed because we knew Lube are a great team and could be dangerous in any situation. Now we focus on the gold medal match, which has been our goal since we landed in Brazil.”

Lube had Bulgarian outside hitter Aleksandar Nikolov as their only player to get to double digits in scoring with 11 kills, with Turkish opposite Adis Lagumdzija and French two-time Olympic champion middle blocker Barthélémy Chinenyeze coming close with eight and seven points, respectively.

Trentino get to Sunday’s final with nine medals earned at the Club World Championship (five golds, one silver and threebronze). The Italians won four straight titles from 2009 to 2012 and returned to the top of the podium in 2018.

Sada Cruzeiro take Foolad down

In the first semifinal, Sada Cruzeiro looked reinvigorated after inconsistent pool play performances and took down the last undefeated team in the tournament, beating reigning Asian champions Foolad 3-1 (25-23, 25-11, 23-25, 26-24).

Olympic champion opposite Wallace de Souza had another great performance, leading the Brazilian side with 21 points (19 kills, two blocks). His teammate in the successful Brazilian campaign at the Rio 2016 Olympics, Lucas Saatkamp added another 17 (12 kills, three blocks, two aces), three more than fellow middle blocker Otávio Pinto.

“Everyone played very well today, it was our best match in the tournament,” Lucas reflected. “We did what we had to do and had great balance. We pushed a little too hard with our serving at the start, but when we noticed their offense wasn’t as smooth, we got more conservative and avoided errors. They recovered in the third set, but we stuck together and adjusted our game again.”

Opposite Ali Hajipour, who kept playing through an injury, was Foolad’s most productive player with 14 points (nine kills, four blocks, one ace). Outside hitter Amin Khalili came next, with 12 points, all in kills.

The Brazilians are guaranteed their ninth medal (they have four golds, two silver and two bronzes) at the Club World Championship and will return to the final for the first time since 2021, when they won their most recent title. Their other victories happened in 2013, 2015 and 2016.

Men's Club World Championship - Match Schedule and Results

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