Four League Champions Face Off In CEV Champions League Pool D
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With a new CEV Champions League Volley season starting on Tuesday 12 November, we are taking a closer look at the teams in each of the five pools in the Pool stage.
After starting the series with a look at the teams in Pool A, today we turn our attention to Pool D.
Pool D is the only pool in this year’s Champions League to feature four separate league champions. The headline team for this pool is Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia, the reigning champions of Italy’s SuperLega.
Perugia finished second in the league standings in the Italian league last season, and then proceeded to sweep through the play-offs, defeating the other two Italian sides in the Champions League this season along the way. It was their first Italian league title since 2018. They also won the Italian Cup for the fourth time last season, showcasing their ability in knockout competition.
On the European stage, all of their best performances have come in the Champions League, and they have become a force to be reckoned with in the competition. Yet to lift the title, they have finished as runners-up once, in 2017, and taken bronze an astonishing five times since then, in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
While Perugia are yet to lift a trophy in Europe, they have had success on an international level, winning the FIVB Volleyball Club World Championship in 2022 and 2023. In last year’s semifinals, they defeated Halkbank Ankara, who they have been drawn with in Pool D.
Similarly to Perugia, Halkbank lifted the Turkish title for the first time since 2018 last season, and they did it in style. After finishing atop the league standings, they defeated Galatasaray and Fenerbahce 2-0 and 3-0 in the play-offs to lift the title. In fact, they only lost one domestic match in the entire season, on the final day of the season to Fenerbahce.
Halkbank also produced a successful defence of their Turkish Cup last season, defeating Fenerbahce in the semi-finals and Arkasspor in the final.
In Europe, Halkbank have had some success. In 2022, they finished as runners-up in the CEV Challenge Cup, falling to Narbonne Volley 21-19 in a Golden Set, and in 2014 they took silver in the Champions League, losing to Russian outfit Belogorie Belgorod in the final. Their only European silverware came the year before, in 2013, when they took down Italian side Top Volley Latina in the CEV Cup final.
French champions Saint-Nazaire VB Atlantique join Halkbank and Perugia in Pool D after a sensational performance last season. Saint-Nazaire have only been back in France’s top flight for two seasons, finishing 6th in 2023 before lifting the title last year.
This will be Saint-Nazaire’s first taste of Champions League action, thought they did feature in Europe last season, falling in the Round of 16 to eventual champions Projekt Warszawa.
The final team in Pool D are Czech champions Jihostroj Ceske Budejovice. Budejovice are the most successful Czech volleyball team of the modern era, winning the Czech league 11 times since 2000. Last season’s success was their first since 2019 and they dominated in the play-offs. Finishing fourth in the league standings, they took down the teams that finished fifth, second and first to lift the title, never dropping more than one match in the process.
On a continental level, Budejovice have not experienced huge amounts of success, their best performance coming back in 1998 when they reached the Final Four of the CEV Challenge Cup.
With four domestic champions competing against each other, the clashes are sure to be fierce. Find out who advances when the Pool D action begins on 13 November.