Second Round #EuroVolleyU16M: rules, key matches and favourites

From April 24 to 27, 2025, teams from all over Europe will compete in the Second Round of the qualification tournament for the U16 European Volleyball Championship, fighting for a spot in the final stage of the tournament, which will take place in Yerevan, Armenia, from July 23 to August 3, 2025.

Second Round Rules:

• The 2nd Round Qualifiers will be played in a single round-robin format.
• Each 2nd Round Qualifier will feature a minimum of three and a maximum of four teams.
• Teams in each 2nd Round Qualifier will play one tournament over three competition days.
• The five second-round pool winners plus the five teams finishing second in each qualifier progress to the Final Round together with the first and second-best 3rd placed teams across all pools. These will join hosts Armenia plus the winners of three first-round zonal qualifiers (Türkiye, Poland, and Czechia) completed late last year / earlier this year. 

The second round of the qualification will take place in five groups, each hosted in one of the participating countries:

• Group A (Bulgaria): Finland, Latvia, Cyprus, Bulgaria
• Group B (Spain): Austria, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Spain
• Group C (France): France, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine
• Group D (Georgia): Georgia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia
• Group E (Greece): Croatia, Greece, Israel, Italy

Matches in Groups A, C, and E will be streamed on Eurovolley.tv.

The Turkish U16 National Team, led by Selim Atilla Kose, has qualified for the U16 European Championship after achieving four victories in the first round of the zonal qualifiers in Alanya. Turkey finished first in the standings with all four wins and has directly qualified. The Czech Republic and Poland have also qualified early for the final stage.

Among the teams that must go through the Second Round, Greece stands out as a serious contender. Their players have shown impressive results in previous matches, including Emmanouil Outzis, Nikolaos Pachakis, and Stefanos Pachiadakis. In their last match against Romania, each of them scored more than 15 points. Greece lost only one match in the previous round. Italy, Bulgaria and Slovenia are traditionally strong in youth volleyball and will present serious competition in their respective groups. France has also a strong young generation as last years their teams U18, U20 and U22 claimed golden medals in European championships. 

Follow the second-round matches of #EuroVolleyU16M to see which teams can confirm their favorite status and who will make it to the final stage of the tournament!