Polish Champions Headline CEV Champions Volley Pool E

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.

Having spent the last few days taking a close look at the other four pools, today we turn our attention to Pool E, our final pool.

The obvious standout in Pool E this year are Polish champions Jastrzębski Węgiel. Jastrzębski have dominated the PlusLiga in recent seasons, winning three of the last four titles and successfully defended the title last year.

They have also been perennial contenders in the Polish Cup, reaching each of the last five finals, but have been unable to add to their solitary title won back in 2010. Last season they final at the final hurdle to Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie.

It has been a similar story on a continental level, where they are still in search of their first title. Jastrzębski have had a lot of success in Europe in recent years, but a title has remained elusive. In 2022, they fell in the semifinals to eventual champions ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle, and ZAKSA were there again the following year to prevent Jastrzębski’s first title by beating them 3-2. Last year, there was no ZAKSA to halt the run, but Jastrzębski still fell in the final, this time to Italian side Itas Trentino.

Joining the Polish giants in Pool E are French side Chaumont VB 52. Chaumont finished the league season with the best record in Ligue A, giving them a good run at the play-offs, but they fell in the semi-finals, losing to fourth seed Tours.

Chaumont’s best season domestically came in 2017, when they won the Ligue A and French Supercup titles, and they have had some more domestic success recently, winning the French Cup in 2022.

This will be Chaumont’s first appearance in the Champions League since 2019, when they reached the quarterfinals, having fallen in the play-offs the year before. They have reached one European final, the 2018 CEV Challenge Cup final, where they lost to Fakel Novy Urengoy.

Also contending Pool E are Bulgarian champions Levski Sofia, who lifted the Bulgarian title for the first time since 2009 last season. They finished with the second-best record in the league but were imperious in the play-offs, defeating defending champions and winners of five of the last seven titles, Neftohimic Burgas, in the semifinals before dismantling CSKA Sofia 3-0 in the final.

Levski have also won back-to-back Bulgarian Supercups as they look to recapture the success they had in the early 2000s.

They are back in the Champions League for the first time since 2007, but have not managed to escape to pool phase this millennium. Their best performance in the Champions League came back in 1960, when they finished third, and they made six CEV Cup finals in the 1970s and 1980s, finishing as runners-up on each occasion.

The final team in Pool E is German side SVG Luneburg. Luneburg finished fourth in the league standings in the Bundesliga, and reached the semifinals of the play-offs, falling to eventual champions and German juggernaut Berlin Recycling Volleys.

Luneburg made their Champions League debut last year, finishing third in the pool and earning a spot in the CEV Cup. They beat AONS Milon in the quarterfinals and then took down Arkas Izmir in a Golden Set in the semifinals to reach their first European final, falling at the hands of Polish Asseco Resovia.

Jastrzębski Węgiel will be the favourites for Pool E, but with two, potentially three, teams potentially advancing, the battles for the other places should be exciting to watch.