Europe’s strongest tournament to resume in Europe’s oldest living city
Preview
The main stage of this season’s CEV Champions League Volley is set to open on Tuesday in Europe’s oldest living city. The first whistle will blow at 18:00 local time at the magnificent Kolodruma hall in Plovdiv, where the first of two round-robin tournaments in Pool C of the women’s competition will take place over three consecutive days.
Bulgarian champions of the last six seasons Maritza Plovdiv will play hosts to France’s ASPTT Mulhouse, Poland’s LKS Commercecon Lodz and Turkey’s VakifBank Istanbul, with each of the four teams trying to gain some valuable advantage before the second such tournament is held in Poland in early February.
Turkish giants VakifBank travel to Plovdiv for the start of coach Giovanni Guidetti’s 13th Champions League season at the helm of the team as the undoubted favourites to win the pool. One of the world’s most decorated clubs in the 21st century has already won four gold medals, four silver and one bronze in the Champions League. They have won 150 of the 205 Champions League matches played, and reached the semifinals eight times in a row and 11 times total. The Istanbul powerhouse’s showcase also boasts a record-high of three FIVB Club World Championship titles, as well as one runner-up and two third-place finishes in the prestigious competition. VakifBank won the CEV Volleyball Cup in 2004 and the CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup in 2008.
After having won the domestic regular season in Turkey, VakifBank did not get a chance to defend their national title as the 2019-2020 league ended prematurely because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, they had been on a 32-match winning streak in the Turkish league until last Saturday when they surprisingly lost at home to THY Istanbul in five sets, despite a 31-point contribution by Swedish star Isabelle Haak. Still, VakifBank hold top of the current standings on a 15-1 win-loss record, while Isabelle eagerly awaits the face-to-face clash with her older sister Anna, now a player of ASPTT Mulhouse, in Plovdiv on Wednesday.
Giovanni Guidetti“We are excited to start the CEV Champions League again. We were very upset that we could not complete the tournament last season due to the pandemic. Right now we feel ready as a team. Because of the pandemic, we haven't met a foreign team for a long time, but we are always ready for competition. We don't know what will happen until the second tournament. That's why we want to win as many matches as we can in the first one.”
Head coach of VakifBank Istanbul
Melis Gurkaynak“We will play our pool matches in a different format from what we are used to. Playing at an intense pace, one match after another, will not be easy, but our goal is to win these three matches and gain some advantage before the second tournament.”
Captain of VakifBank Istanbul
In the opening match of the pool stage in this season’s Champions League, VakifBank will be challenged by LKS Commercecon. The Polish team arrived at this stage of the competition after overcoming the first two rounds, in which they went past Israel’s Hapoel Kfar Saba by forfeit and defeated Slovenia’s Calcit Volley Kamnik twice, in straight sets at home and by 3-1 away.
LKS represent Poland in this edition of the European Cups as the bronze medallists of the 2019-2020 season at home. It was their third consecutive podium in the Polish league, after the 2018 silver and the 2019 gold. Before making the trip to Plovdiv, the squad from Lodz are in fourth place domestically on a 5-4 win-loss record. In their last match, they managed an away 3-1 victory over #VolleyWroclaw with 21 points from one of the stars of the team, Katarzyna Zaroslinska-Krol.
Next onto the Kolodruma court, on Tuesday at 20:30, will come out the teams of ASPTT and Maritza. For the French side, this is the ninth Champions League campaign within a total of 21 appearances in the European Cups. So far the club from Mulhouse have played 46 matches and gained nine victories in the top-tier continental competition, but have never managed to advance past the pool stage, so they are targeting a historic qualification for the playoffs. On a perfect record of six wins in six matches and 16 points, the Mulhousiennes are second only to Nantes, the other French representative in the Champions League, in the current standings of their national league. In the previous edition they won the regular season before the playoffs got cancelled.
ASPTT have never faced Maritza or LKS before, but have met VakifBank on five occasions and even defeated the formidable opponents in the 1998 CEV Cup bronze medal match. The two teams also played each other twice in the 2000 CEV Cup and twice in the 2010 Champions League. Mulhouse have played other Polish teams in the European Cups before, including last season’s CEV Cup encounters (lost in the golden set) with Developres SkyRes Rzeszow featuring Zaroslinska-Krol, currently competing for LKS.
Tournament hosts Maritza enter their fifth consecutive Champions League season as the absolute hegemon on the Bulgarian domestic stage. They have been on a 99-match winning streak in their national league since November 2015 and they have won all of their official matches in 2020 so far, including last winter’s Champions League victories over Russian giants Dinamo Moscow and Uralochka-NTMK Ekaterinburg and France’s RC Cannes. Interestingly, this is the third time in a row that Maritza start their Champions League campaign with a match against the top representative of France, after Beziers Volley in 2018 and RC Cannes in 2019.
Maritza have won 14 of the 40 matches as well as both golden sets they have played in their European Cups history. This is their fourth back-to-back appearance in the pool stage of the Champions League, but they never succeeded in progressing further in the competition. With a rejuvenated squad including 14-year-old Iva Dudova, the youngest registered player in this edition of the Champions League, 31-year-old Lazar Lazarov will try to lead Maritza to new heights in his career’s first season as a head coach.
Lazar Lazarov“For me, to lead Maritza in the most prestigious of tournaments is a great honour, a great opportunity and a great responsibility. Sports-wise and health-wise, everything with the team is OK. Regardless of the tough format and the tough opponents, we are ready to give 100% and strive for victory in every game. Unfortunately, we will miss the emotion that the home crowd usually brings to the Kolodruma, but we still have the home court advantage on our side.”
Head coach of Maritza Plovdiv
Petya Barakova“In my first appearance in the Champions League, we reached the final with Romania’s Volley Alba Blaj and the emotion during the Final Four in Bucharest was extraordinary. But now is the first time I will play in the Champions League with a Bulgarian team and this makes me even happier. It will be very tough without the fans on the stands, but I think if we show a good team effort and a good performance we can advance to the next stage.”
Captain of Maritza Plovdiv
While the general public is not allowed to enter the Kolodruma because of the coronavirus-related regulations, all matches in Plovdiv will be streamed live on EuroVolleyTV and televised nationally in Bulgaria on BNT 3.
