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CEV Champions League Volley 2025 | Men
The 2024/25 pre-season has seen an abundance of transfer activity among the top European leagues, with many teams looking to strengthen ahead of a European challenge this season.
Last season’s CEV Champions League Volley champions, Italian side Itas Trentino, will not have the opportunity to defend their title, instead having to compete in the CEV Cup following the completion of the Italian SuperLiga. Nevertheless, they have strengthened an already glittering roster.
Brazilian Flavio Gualberto is the biggest name of the newcomers, and he comes in to replace Marko Podrascanin. The addition of American Gabi Fernandez will also ensure that Trentino will challenge on the domestic and continental stage again this season.
Last year’s runners-up, Jastrzębski Węgiel have also made moves this off-season. The end of last season was a bittersweet event for Węgiel, who won the PlusLiga, but fell in the finals of the Polish Cup and the Champions League. As they look to focus on a treble this time around, the Polish giants have brought in Lukasz Kaczmarek to replace Jean Patry after the Frenchman departed for Galatasaray in the AXA Sigorta Efeler Ligi.
Kaczmarek’s technical skill will be on full display and adding a home-grown talent meant Węgiel could add another foreign player in the giant form of Anton Brehme. Brehme joins a side who are already dominant in the middle and the offensive juggernaut will look to take his new side to the heights their fingertips brushed last season.
Italian side Sir Sicome Monini Perugia will be without the services of Cuban superstar Wilfredo Leon this season, who has moved to PlusLiga side Bogdanka LUK Lubin, but they have strengthened, prising away Japanese star Yuki Ishikawa from rivals Allianz Milano. Ishikawa gets to join forces with coach Angelo Lorenzetti in Perugia, who was his first coach when he arrived in the SuperLiga some 10 years ago.
With one of the world’s best spikers joining Sir, they also brought in one of the world’s best blockers in the form of Argentinian Agustin Loser, who joins compatriot Sebastian Soler in Perugia.
Allianz Milano will surely feel the loss of Ishikawa to one of their league rivals, but they brought in another Japanese player to replace him, 23-year-old outside hitter Tatsunori Otsuka. Milan will be Otsuka’s first experience of playing outside of his native Japan, but Ishikawa provided some reassurance:
Tatsunori Otsuka“Yuki told me that I would find an excellent club, an excellent team and, above all, that I could learn a lot here,”
French international and reigning Olympic champions Yacine Louati is also heading to Milan this season, as he moves from Polish side Asseco Resovia Rzeszow.
The final Italian side competing in this season’s Champions League is Vero Volley Monza, and they have also added an international name to their roster. The runners-up in last season’s SuperLiga have added American middle blocker Taylor Averill, in addition to outside hitter Osmany Juantorena and another middle blocker, Leandro Mosca.
Cuban-born Italian Juantorena may have recently turned 38, but he brings a wealth of experience to the roster, in addition to three Champions League titles.
The two other Polish sides in this year’s Champions League have also strengthened. Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie have brought in 21-year-old Iranian outside hitter Mobin Nasri, who impressed in the 2023 Junior World Championships, and also Aaron Russell to replace the departing Trevor Clevenot.
Projekt Warszawa lost Taylor Averill to Monza, but have replaced him with Polish Olympic silver medallist Kuba Kochanowski, and also brought in German internation outside hitter Tobias Brand.
With a lot of familiar faces in exciting new locations, we cannot wait to see how the tides will turn in this season’s CEV Champions League Volley.