Brasov (Romania), 14 January 2025
2025 CEV Cup, on Wednesday in Romania (4:30 pm) the playoffs home match

The 2025 CEV Cup is once again at the forefront of Trentino Itas's calendar: on Wednesday, January 15 in Brasov (Romania), the European Champion team will play the first leg of the Playoffs (the round before the quarter-finals), facing the home team CSM Corona. Starting time is scheduled for 4:30 PM Italian time at the “Dumitru Popescu Colibasi” Sports Hall. The match will be broadcast live on Radio Dolomiti.
THE LAST NEWS ABOUT TRENTINO ITAS The year 2025 continues with challenging away games for the yellow-blues who, after Modena and Perugia, face the match on the field of the Romanian National Champions, diving back into international competitions, particularly the CEV Cup, a European competition in which they have already successfully completed two previous rounds (the sixteenth and the eighth finals), brilliantly overcoming Galati and Benfica.
“We are returning to Romania aware that we face a challenge probably even more complicated than the one we had in this country two months ago against Galati,” explained coach Fabio Soli. “Brasov is the reigning National Champion team and has reached this stage with a good track record, both in the competition and in the national tournament. The first away match always hides many pitfalls, especially if you arrive after a long journey and following the genuine three-hour battle we had in Perugia. Therefore, it will be necessary to pay a lot of attention to the approach to the game, to try to immediately bring the match onto the desired tracks, which are those of quality and performance consistency.”
Trentino Itas will head into the first leg without central player Kozamernik, completing their preparation between training sessions this evening and Wednesday morning on the game field. This will be the 230th international match in Trentino Volley's history, the 146th away game, and the 42nd in the CEV Cup, where they have achieved victory thirty-five times so far.
FOURTH EVER AWAY MATCH IN ROMANIA This is Trentino Volley's fourth away match in Romania, a country they visited exactly two months ago, in that case to Galati, for the first leg of the round of 16 (winning 3-1). Prior to this season, the yellow-blue club had also played in Zalau on December 8, 2010 (winning 3-0) for the group stage of the 2011 Champions League edition and in Craiova on January 13, 2015 (winning 3-0) for the quarter-finals of the CEV Cup. In both cases, after the away match in Romania, Trento always managed to qualify for the final of that specific competition, winning in 2011 in Bolzano and losing in 2015 in Moscow.
THE OPPONENTS CSM Corona of Brasov, a city of nearly 240,000 inhabitants in central Romania in the Transylvania region, is preparing to play the most prestigious home game in its recent history. The volleyball branch of the sports club, which also includes high-ranking teams in football, handball, and hockey, was only established in 2022, but immediately achieved great results: promotion to the top Romanian league in 2023 and winning the national title, snatched from Galati, in 2024. For this reason, they were registered for the current season's preliminary rounds of the Champions League, narrowly missing the group stage after eliminating Bosnia's Ok Radnik Bijeljina in the first round, Switzerland's Schönenwerd in the second, and their run was halted against Greece's Olympiacos. Relegated to the 2025 CEV Cup, they overcame Serbia's Novi Sad in the round of 32 and Estonia's Tallinn in the round of 16.
Coach Laurentiu Lica (a former high-level opposite player with experience in the French league) can rely on Argentine setter Arquez, Azeri opposite Melnikov, hitters Gommans (Dutch), Butler (Australian), Kovacevic, Stojsavljević, and Kovac (all three Serbs), and central players Magdas and Lupu, along with libero Kantor, the only three native elements of the sextet. The Brazilian setter Radke (formerly in SuperLega with Sora) would also be on the roster, but he has been injured for some time and will not be part of the match. In the Romanian top league, CSM Corona Brasov is currently fourth in the standings behind Dinamo Bucharest (formerly coached by Bela Bartha, with whom they lost in a tie-break on Saturday night), Craiova (already an opponent of Trentino Volley in the 2015 CEV Cup edition), and Galati, with twenty-nine points and nine victories in thirteen games. The roster of CSM Corona Brasov: 1. Augusto Renato Colito (o), 4. Ioan Bacila (l), 6. Ewoud Gommans (s), 7. Murilo Radke (p), 8. Tudor Magdas (c), 11. Andrey Melnikov (o), 12. Beau James Graham (c), 14. Stefan Lupu (c), 16. Federico Arquez (p), 17. Vlad Alexandru Kantor (l), 18. Andrei Laza (c), 19. Filip Kovacevic (s), 20. Dusan Stojsavlejevic (s), 21. Nicholas Butler (p), 24. Davide Kovac (s). Coach Laurentiu Lica.
THE COMPETITION FORMAT The 2025 CEV Cup consists of seven rounds (home and away matches) played in a knockout format (Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarterfinals – already played, Playoffs, Semifinals, and Final): the team that accumulates the most points over the two matches advances. Points are awarded as follows: 3 points for a 3-0 or 3-1 victory, 2 points for a win in the tie-break, and 1 point for a loss in the tie-break (golden set to 15 points in case of a points tie – same system as in the CEV Champions League Playoffs 12). The team that advances will face the second-placed third-place finisher from the Champions League group stage in the quarterfinals. Currently in contention for this position are Maaseik and Roeselare (Belgium), Fenerbahce (Turkey), Saint Nazaire (France), and Levski Sofia (Bulgaria), but with two matchdays remaining, the situation could easily change.
THE BACKGROUND Wednesday’s match will be the first-ever encounter between the two clubs. Trentino Volley has faced Romanian teams six times, winning all encounters. These include three matches played in Romania, as well as three home matches: December 13, 2010 (3-0 vs. Zalau), January 22, 2015 (3-1 vs. Craiova in the return leg), and November 20, 2024 (3-0 vs. Galati).
REFEREES The match will be officiated by Atanas Varbanov, the first referee from Sofia, Bulgaria, and Darko Savic from Belgrade, Serbia, as the second referee. Only the first referee has previous experience officiating a Trentino Volley match, having refereed the 3-0 win against the Swiss team Amriswil on February 19, 2019, in the return leg of the CEV Cup quarterfinals.
RADIO AND INTERNET The match will be live-commentated by Radio Dolomiti, the media partner of Trentino Volley, with live connections from Portugal starting at approximately 16:35. The radio station’s website, www.radiodolomiti.com, provides access to regional frequencies and allows listeners to stream the live commentary by accessing the "on air" section.
For live score updates during the match, visit the official CEV website at www.cev.eu/match-centres/2025-european-cups/cev-volleyball-cup-2025-men/ccm-69-csm-corona-brasov-v-trentino-itas/, or Trentino Volley’s website at www.trentinovolley.it, where set-by-set commentary will also be posted shortly after the end of each set. Real-time updates will also be available on the team’s social media channels, particularly on Instagram at www.trentinovolley.it/instagram and Twitter at www.trentinovolley.it/twitter.
Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office