site.btaLegendary Italian Club Retires No. 1 Jersey in Honour of Bulgarian Volleyball Player Matey Kaziyski

Legendary Italian volleyball club Trentino Volley retired their No.1 jersey in honour of Bulgarian player Matey Kaziyski who wore it for 433 games during his time with the team. The ceremony took place on Wednesday before the start of a game between Trentino and Kaziyski's current club Allianz Milano. 

Trentino is one of the most successful clubs in the history of the sport with Kaziyski being its first player to receive such honour. The 39-year-old Bulgarian spent nearly 13 years of his career in the Italian team in four periods between 2007 and 2023, scoring a total of 6,066 points and winning seventeen trophies while wearing the yellow-blue jersey. His performance won him the nickname "The Emperor". 

"Forever 1 of us", wrote Trentino on their website on occasion of retiring the jersey. During the ceremony on Wednesday, the club President Bruno Da Re symbolically handed Kaziyski a banner depicting a stylized uniform with the player's number and surname, which will be installed on the roof of Trentino's ilT quotidiano Arena next to the banners representing the team's titles. 

Trentino Volley entered the Italian Volleyball League, one of the best leagues in the world, in 2000 and quickly established itself as one of the sport's powerhouses, winning 3 CEV Champions Leagues, 1 CEV Cup, 5 FIVB Club World Championships, 5 Italian Championships, 3 Italian Cups and 3 Italian Super Cups.

Kaziyski was an integral part of the club's rise to greatness as he joined a year before Trentino's first major trophy and had a leading role in securing sixteen more. He holds the team's scoring record. The Bulgarian won the award for Most Valuable Player at 2008's Italian Championship Final, 2009's CEV Champions League and 2009 FIVB Club World Championship, and received eight more individual awards during his time in Trentino.

Matey Kaziyski also enjoyed success with the Bulgarian national team, winning bronze medals at the World Championship in 2006, the World Cup in 2007 and the European Championship in 2009.

His career for Bulgaria was cut short in 2012 when he and the country's most successful volleyball coach Radostin Stoychev protested against the leadership of the Bulgarian Volleyball Federation (BVF) and left the national team days after qualifying for the 2012 Summer Olympics. As they did so, they held a news conference where they slammed the federation leadership for ineffective management, lack of financial transparency and catering to their own interests rather than to the interest of Bulgarian volleyball. 

Kaziyski was invited to rejoin the national team on several occasions but refused to do so.