The 2018 CEV Champions League map
ph. cev.lu
Trento, November 13th 2017
The CEV Champions League that is officially starting on Tuesday December 5th , that is to say the first day of Main Phase (group stage), will be one of the most prestigious editions of recent times. On Friday afternoon from 4:00pm (Italian time) in Moscow, the drawing will take place and among the teams that will be divided into 5 pools there are the most qualified clubs of Europe. Twelve of those Clubs, indeed, already participated in the previous edition of the championship and nine of them arrived till the final phase (the so called Playoff 12). Even though Trentino Volley didn't participate in the 2016/2017 edition, it still is one of the most prestigious teams of this year: the team will take part in the championship for the eighth time, thanks to the second place it obtained in the last regular season of SuperLega UnipolSai, and will try and qualify for the 4th time in a row to the continental final (it would be the 8th of its history), after the ones the team played in the CEV Cup (2015 and 2017) and in the Champions edition 2016. The list of the nineteen opponents of the yellow-blues, that was only defined on Sunday night after the third preliminary match, is very prestigious: the competing Clubs, which have already achieved at least one European qualification, are eleven, for a total of nineteen trophies. As well as Trentino Volley, winner of three Champions League between 2009 and 2011, in CEV’s hall of fame there are also Fenerbahce Istanbul (which won the 2014 Challenge Cup), the reigning champion Kazan (winner of 2008, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 Champions), Civitanova (which, in Macerata won the 2002 Champions, the 2001 and 2006 CEV Cups and the 2011 Challenge), Novosibirsk (2013 Champions), Friedrichshafen (2007 Champions), Moscow (1985 Cup of the Cups and 2012 and 2015 CEV Cup), Roeselare (2002 Top Team Cup), Izmir (2009 Challenge), Ankara (2013 CEV Cup) and Berlin (2016 CEV Cup)
With so many prestigious teams, the draw won’t inevitably allow Diatec Trentino to avoid at least a couple of matches of a certain level, already in the eliminations rounds, bearing in mind that the teams which have achieved the qualification in the preliminary rounds, won’t be added among the seeded teams, in which Trento is located. Lanza and company could immediately fish one or more up among Perugia, Fenerbahce, Friedrichshafen, Novosibirsk and Jastrzebski. From December there will be big matches, in the continental field as well.
Trentino Volley Srl
Press Office
