The weekend dedicated to the Italian Cup Final Four ends with the first Trentino victory in history. An extraordinary amount of supporters – around 5.030 – filled the PalaMadigan in Montecatini Terme, many of them coming from Trento and Cuneo.


 


Result


Itas Diatec Trentino-Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo 3-1 (28-26, 25-15, 20-25, 27-25)


 


ITAS DIATEC TRENTINO – BRE BANCA LANNUTTI CUNEO 3-1 (28-26, 25-15, 20-25, 27-25) –


 


ITAS DIATEC TRENTINO: Kaziyski 19, Birarelli 10, Portuondo Juantorena 14, Zygadlo 1, Vieira De Oliveira 3, Vissotto Neves 20, Sala 11, Sokolov, Herpe, Bari (L). DNP Gallosti, Fedrizzi, Corsini. Coach. Stoytchev.


 


BRE BANCA LANNUTTI CUNEO: Henno (L), Parodi 13, Fortunato 8, Nuti, Nikolov 20, Grbic 1, Peda 1, Mastrangelo 8, Patriarca 15, Pieri. DNP Wijsmans, Ariaudo, Jeroncic. Coach. Giuliani.


 


Trentino registered its first ever triumph in the Italian Cup thanks to a 3-1 win over Cuneo in what has been a fascinating and hard-fought final in Montecatini Terme.


Kaziyski and Vissotto (MVP) were the main architects of this success, they respectively scored 19 and 20 points. The gap might not be that big but Trento’s superiority was evident, especially in the crunch moments. Cuneo’s Nikolov had 20 points too, but even with him and despite a courageous team performance after the terrible second set, the dream could not come true.


A first hard-fought set was filled with spectacular plays. Tight all the way, Cuneo eventually took a two-point edge at 21-19, but it’s Trento that had the set point at 25, cancelled out by Cuneo. However, this was only a delay for Trento, which sealed it at 28-26 at its third attempt.


In the second set, Cuneo’s play was far too individualistic to have a chance to stop Vissotto and Kaziyski. Just when things seemed to go all wrong for Cuneo, it awoke from the dead with Nikolov (7 points and 3 aces) and Mastrangelo paving the way to a third set victory. More thrilling action came in the fourth set with a lot of twists and turns. Still, Cuneo had been in charge for most of the set until Trento managed to tie it at 22. Once again, it went over the 25-point mark as Juantorena handed the cup to Trento (27-25).


 


Emanuele Birarelli (Itas Diatec Trentino): “This club is ready to win much more. We have won other important trophies but this cup is very special, the Italian cup is particularly prestigious”


 


Matey Kaziyski (Itas Diatec Trentino): “The trophies won in the past don’t matter. This victories proves that Trento has a heart: we fought all the way and never stopped to believe that we could win against a tough opponent. We have to keep looking ahead now”.


 


Andrea Bari (Itas Diatec Trentino): “Cuneo was a tough opponent. The victory was far from granted, we could win it as much as it could have happened the contrary. We wanted to keep our winning run going. We have done it and are extremely satisfied”  


 


Nikola Grbic (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo): “It’s been a thrilling final against a great team. We knew that with our full squad we could have had a chance but we lacked consistency in the clutch time”.


 


Giuseppe Patriarca (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo): “Congratulations to Trento. They played more as a team than us. We are extremely disappointed but tonight’s performance will give us extra motivation for the league”.


 


Thanks to Sisal Matchpoint, here are the five quickest serve of the A1 cup final:


 


n. 1 Matey KAZIYSKI (Itas Diatec Trentino) 132 Km/h


n. 2 Vladimir NIKOLOV (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo) 120 Km/h


n. 3 Simone PARODI (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo) 115 Km/h


n. 4 Luigi MASTRANGELO (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo) 113 Km/h


n. 5 Leandro VISSOTTO (Itas Diatec Trentino) 112 Km/h