Men’s Champions League: Road to the Final Four

With four days to go to the men’s CEV Champions League Volley 2025 Final Four event in Lodz, let’s retrace the steps each of the four participating teams made on the way to the semifinals.

Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie (Poland)

Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie won all eight of their Champions League matches on the way to the Final Four set to be held at home in Poland, less than two hundred kilometers from their home.

In Pool C, Aluron mastered home and away straight-set wins over Austria’s Hypo Tirol Innsbruck and over Belgium’s Knack Roeselare. The only two sets (and the only point) they dropped in the pool came in their road win at Italy’s Allianz Milan. At home, however, they shut out the Italian Champions League rookies to top the final pool standings undefeated.

Jumping directly to the quarterfinals, the squad from Zawiercie swept their away game at SVG Lueneburg and followed up with a four-set victory over the German team at home.

In their next match on Saturday, Aluron will meet Polish compatriots JSW Jastrzebski Wegiel Jastrzebie-Zdroj. This semifinal will be the fifth encounter between the two teams this season. So far, they have traded victories in two finals, with Aluron winning the Poland Super Cup and Jastrzebski Wegiel winning the Poland Cup. They have also exchanged straight-set road victories in the Polish PlusLiga.

Halkbank Ankara (Turkiye)

Halkbank Ankara were the only team that managed to beat Italian champions Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia in this edition of the Champions League so far. They did so in the last leg of the pool stage, in five sets in Perugia. However, they had lost to Sir in straight sets at home before that. Halkbank started their Pool D campaign with another defeat on home ground, 3-2 at the hands of Saint-Nazair Atlantique, but they also took their revenge against this opponent, beating them in five sets in their second match in France. Against the other Pool D opponent, Czechia’s Jihostroj Ceske Budejovice, the Turkish team put together a 3-1 away win and a 3-0 sweep at home and finished pool runners-up on a 4-2 win-loss record and 11 points.

In the eighthfinals, Halkbank traded four-set home wins with Italy’s Allianz Milan, which led to a golden set right after the away match. The visitors from Ankara won it by 15-13 and progressed to the quarterfinals.

In a similar scenario, Halkbank knocked out Poland’s PGE Projekt Warsaw on the way to the semis. In the first leg of the quarterfinals, they delivered a 3-1 home win, only to allow the opponent a sweep of the second-leg match in Poland and prompt another golden set. It went 15-12 Halkbank’s way as they progressed in the competition for another encounter with Sir at the Final Four this Friday.

JSW Jastrzebski Wegiel Jastrzebie-Zdroj (Poland)

Jastrzebie-Zdroj is about 250 kilometers from Lodz, but Jastrzebski Wegiel’s road to the Final Four went through four foreign countries and took eight matches, of which they won seven.

Jastrzebski Wegiel topped the final Pool E standings on a 6-0 win-loss record and 17 points. Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia were the only team that managed to take away a point from them as they won two sets against the Polish powerhouse at home. In the first match in Poland, Jastrzebski Wegiel shut out the Bulgarian team. Against France’s Chaumont 52, Jastrzebski registered a 3-0 away and a 3-1 at home, and against Germany’s SVG Lueneburg, they achieved a 3-1 away and a 3-0 at home.

Jastrzebski Wegiel progressed straight to the quarterfinals, where they suffered the only defeat of their campaign so far, a 3-2 at Greece’s Olympiacos Piraeus in the first leg. In the second leg, however, they reacted with a clean sweep at home and advanced to next Saturday’s meeting with Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie in Lodz.

Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia (Italy)

So far this season, Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia has lost only one of the eight Champions League matches played and that was in the last leg of their Pool D campaign, when they had already secured the first place in the pool and it was a game they could afford losing. They were beaten at home in five sets by the team they are about to meet again on Friday – Halkbank Ankara.

With France’s Saint-Nazair Atlantique and Czechia’s Jihostroj Ceske Budejovice also in the group, Sir had swept all five of their previous matches in the pool in straight sets.

They advanced straight to the quarterfinals, where they defeated compatriots Mint Vero Volley Monza twice – 3-1 on the road and 3-1 at home – to progress to the Final Four in Lodz.