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Grupa Azoty KĘDZIERZYN-KOŹLE

1. It will be the 16th duel between the two teams in European cups (Champions League, CEV Cup). The teams met for the first time on February 14, 2002.

2. The balance of cup matches is 6 wins for ZAKSA and 9 wins for Trento. The two most prestigious victories were achieved by ZAKSA, defeating the team from Italy in the final of the 2021 and 2022 Champions League.

3. In Wednesday's match, a new ZAKSA player will be able to play Bartosz Bednorz, who signed a 1.5-year contract with the team from Kedzierzyn Kozle. As a player of Azimut Leo Shoes and Skra Bełchatów, Bednorz played 20 matches in the Champions League and won the Italian Super Cup and the Russian Super Cup.

4. After playing in the Chinese league, Bartosz Bednorz already made his debut in the Polish Plus League in a match in Gdańsk against Trefl, lost by ZAKSA 1:3.

5. The interest in the meeting on the part of our fans is very high and we are not surprised at all. After all, the two finals of the Champions League took place in Italy and Slovenia and the fans were there only in a small group. Now everyone wants to see Europe's top two volleyball teams live. I hope that it will traditionally be a huge support for our team because, as we know, Polish fans are extremely expressive and supportive - emphasizes the president of the club from Kędzierzyn Koźle, Piotr Szpaczek.

TRENTINO Itas

1. Trentino Itas will be back in Poland for the twelfth time to try and close the Pool D unbeaten and with the highest ranking. After having conquered the first place in the final with one turn in advance, Angelo Lorenzetti’s team will face the two-time reigning champions of Groupa Azoty with the need of winning this match, so that it can keep its place among the first best ranked teams of the five pools. In that case, the team could be ranked at a higher place in the quarterfinals’ scoreboard of the competition in which the team already qualified.

2. Poland is the most visited country of the yellow-blue’s history, a total of 18 played matches and only 4 lost. The first overall match played there goes back to March 4th 2009 (3-1 victory for Czestochowa), while the last one was on December 2nd 2018, when the team conquered the World Champions title for the fifth time by winning against Cucine Lube Civitanova. Since then, the yellow-blue team never came back in this country.

3. The two clubs got a long series of direct competitions in the European Cups, and in fact, Kedzierzyn-Kozle is Trentino Volley’s most faced team counting eleven official matches. Besides the two finals of the previous editions (May 1st 2021 in Verona – 3-1 for the Polish team and on May 21st 2022 in Lubiana – 3-0 for the Polish team), the duel was played in the pool phase of 2012, 2013 and 2018 Champions League editions and in the CEV Cup 2015 semi-final. The toll counts 6-5 for Trento who, before the first round of the pool phase (won 3-1 on November 29th), lost the last four direct matches: in addition to the previous one in Verona and in Slovenia, there also are the matches played on December 20th 2017 in Poland (Zaska’s only home victory) and then on February 14th 2018 at the BLM Group Arena. Trentino Volley played at the Azoty Arena on December 22nd 2011 (tie break victory), on November 21st 2012 (victory in four sets) and on March 24th 2015 (another victory in five sets).

4. Trentino Volley’s tradition against Polish teams is positive: 16 victories out of 22 played matches, also taking into consideration of the three successes against Belchatow and Rzeszow   and the two against Czestochowa and Jastrzebski.

5. Trentino Itas will show up in Poland without Oreste Cavuto and Srecko Lisinac, who will stay in Trento because of a different training program .