Women’s Champions League: Road to the Final Four

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

Antonio Carraro Imoco Conegliano (Italy)

Reigning 2024 European champions Antonio Carraro Imoco Conegliano of Italy started the defense of their continental title in Pool A of the so-called fourth round of this season’s competition in the company of Bulgaria’s Maritza Plovdiv, Croatia’s Mladost Zagreb and Poland’s DevelopRes Rzeszow. The Italians won all six of their matches in the pool, collecting the full 18 points and dropping only a set in the process, in their away match at DevelopRes.

Imoco qualified for the quarterfinals, where they met the same Polish opponent from Rzeszow and this time mastered straight-set wins both at home and on the road.

Meanwhile, Imoco collected all the trophies they could put their hands on this season - the Italy Super Cup in September, the FIVB Club World Championship in December, the Italy Cup in February and the Italian championship title earlier this month. In each of these competitions, the squad from Conegliano had to successfully deal with their upcoming Champions League semifinal opponent, Numia Vero Volley Milan, as either the final or the semifinal obstacle.

Numia Vero Volley Milan (Italy)

Having been denied the opportunity to lift any trophies so far this season by Imoco, Numia Vero Volley Milan will have another opportunity not only to climb to the top of a podium, but also to get back at their rivals from Conegliano directly as they face them in this Saturday’s Champions League semifinal.

To get to this stage of Europe’s most prestigious club competition, Vero Volley started off by making runners-up to Turkiye’s VakifBank Istanbul in Pool C on a 5-1 win-loss record and 15 points. The team from Milan did not lose any sets in the four matches against the other two opponents in the pool, Portugal’s FC Porto and Slovenia’s Calcit Kamnik, but in their first encounter with the Turkish powerhouse on the road, they suffered a painful straight-set defeat. In the last leg of pool play, Vero Volley took their revenge from VakifBank with a four-set home victory, but the set lost cost them the first place in the final pool standings.

Moving on to the eighthfinals, the Italian team shut out Germany’s SSC Palmberg Schwerin twice to progress to the quarterfinals, where they did the same with mighty Eczacibasi Dynavit Istanbul of Turkiye, preventing them from appearing at the upcoming Final Four in front of a home crowd in the Turkish megalopolis.

Savino Del Bene Scandicci (Italy)

Savino Del Bene Scandicci have cruised through the Champions League season without dropping a single set in eight matches played so far, on the way to Saturday’s semifinal encounter with VakifBank.

In Pool E, the Italian team mastered two straight-set wins over each of their three opponents – Germany’s Allianz MTV Stuttgart, Poland’s BKS Bostik ZGO Bielsko-Biala and Romania’s CSO Voluntari 2005 – to top the final pool standings and jump straight into the quarterfinals.

Another Polish team, Grot Budowlani Lodz, came up against Savino in the duels for the semifinal spots and, once again, the squad from Scandicci powered through this obstacle, sweeping both games in straight sets.

VakifBank Istanbul (Turkiye)

VakifBank remained as the only Istanbul heavyweight in the battlegrounds for the season’s Champions League crown to defend the home nation’s honor at the Ulker hall this weekend.

VakifBank dropped a set in their Champions League season opener against Slovenia’s Calcit Kamnik at home, but then swept through their next four Pool C matches with straight-set wins over Portugal’s FC Porto away and at home, over Italy’s Vero Volley at home and over Calcit on the road. In the last pool match, the Turkish team took exactly what it needed to finish on top of the pool, a set from their visit to Milan, where they suffered their only defeat in that group.

Progressing straight to the quarterfinals, there VakifBank had a rough encounter with city rivals Fenerbahce Medicana Istanbul. They were shut out in the first match at home, at the Vakifbank Spor Sarayi, but won the away match in four sets to push the series to a golden set. To complete their comeback, VakifBank took the golden set by 15-11 and stayed in contention for their seventh continental crown.

Meanwhile, they also won the Turkish league title after three four-set wins over Fenerbahce in the best-of-five championship playoff.