2018 CEV Challenge Cup

  • This competition is at least in its early stage as boring as expected: the most prominent favourites prevailed, i.e. Bursa, Krasnodar, Olympiacos, Targoviste and maybe we include Nantes and Pfeffingen here. The only interesting result was IMHO the win of Stiinta Bacau, Romania, against Azerrail Baku in Golden Set in the Azeri capital, which marks the end of Azeri European Cups participation maybe not only for this season. They will fall far downwards in European Cups ranking in two years therefore.

  • 8th Final

    CHARLEROI Volley (BEL) – BURSA BBSK (TUR)
    Hermes OOSTENDE (BEL) – Tent OBRENOVAC (SRB)


    Vasas Óbuda BUDAPEST (HUN) – NANTES VB (FRA)
    Ibsa CV LAS PALMAS (ESP) – Viteos NEUCHATEL Université (SUI)


    Sm’AESCH Pfeffingen (SUI) – Stiinta BACAU (ROM)
    Olympiacos SFP PIRAEUS (GRE) – C.S.M. TARGOVISTE (ROM)


    OrPo ORIVESI (FIN) – TJ OSTRAVA (CZE)
    Dinamo KRASNODAR (RUS) – Strabag VC BRATISLAVA (SVK)


  • The best and most interesting duel is supposed to be Olympiacos against Targoviste. Maybe it is also interesting, if Pfeffingen can resist effectively against other Romanian team Stiinta Bacau.

  • Indeed Pfeffingen, leader in Switzerland before Volero currently, resisted well against Stiinta BACAU, the third in the Romanian A1 league and enforced a tie-break. It is likely of course, that Bacau will win the return match as well and proceed anyway.

  • Remarkable win by CSM Targoviste in Piraeus against Olympiacos (won silver in this competition already). They lead already 0:2, than the Greek champions tied, but in the end Targoviste won the tie-break. Funny is also, that there were three German NT players on court: Saskia Hippe (top scorer today) and Jana-Franziska Poll for Olympiacos and Lenka Dürr for Targoviste. The return match in Romania is now very interesting and Targoviste has an edge on it. Olympiacos made more points in total and was better in attack efficiency, while Targoviste had and edge in block kills.

  • Today in Targoviste, which won on the road in tie-break the match in Piraeus, hosts Olympiacos for a rather interesting return match with advantage for the host. - Most matches will follow the next two days as usual.

  • Olympiacos managed the difficult return match situation on the road in Romania against Targoviste, when the both German NT players lead their effort with 22 (Poll) respective 20 (Hippe) points and qualified directly for the next round.

  • Despite the both top seeded teams proceeded today as expected, it was much more tedious for them as expected: Bursa won at home in three, mostly very close sets (especially the first 33:31! but also third was just 25:23) against Belgian underdogs Charleroi. Krasnodar even lost a set against underdogs from Bratislava (Slowakia).


    A remarkable exploit was done by Swiss league leaders Pfeffingen in Bacau/Romania, where they won in four sets and proceeded with a more close first match (tie-break win for Stiinta Bacau) to the next round.

  • And the boredom continues: easily away/first match wins for Bursa and Krasnodar again, today also to expect a win of Olympiacos Piraeus in Swiss Pfeffingen and fourth quarter has to be considered more or less irrelevant (aside from the teams participating).

  • And the boredom continues: easily away/first match wins for Bursa and Krasnodar again, today also to expect a win of Olympiacos Piraeus in Swiss Pfeffingen and fourth quarter has to be considered more or less irrelevant (aside from the teams participating).

    And the boredom continues: easily away/first match wins for Bursa and Krasnodar again, today also to expect a win of Olympiacos Piraeus in Swiss Pfeffingen and fourth quarter has to be considered more or less irrelevant (aside from the teams participating).

    :white: you expected also last round a clear win by Bacau ? Whats going on with you ?? if its all so Boring for you why you watching Games ?? why all this negative Posts ??

  • It gets only interesting in the semis - indeed, the win of Pfeffingen against Bacau was the first surprise. But you have to admit, that CL and CEV cup are much more interesting, or not?

  • It gets only interesting in the semis - indeed, the win of Pfeffingen against Bacau was the first surprise. But you have to admit, that CL and CEV cup are much more interesting, or not?

    i dont know .... maybe Pool D yes there its quit close on top .. all other Pools are more then less 1- 2 team beat everything, so how can you see its more intresting ??


    for shure level in Challenge and CEV cup lower , but its not borring ** You judging the Level or the Clubs here and have no idea about ther Budget or Generalprogramm they made so in my eyes this is not good for our Sport. by the way i think you support Stuttgart so i dont think the play borring or the Game in Dresden was bad


    thx

  • I didn't want to offend clubs from weaker leagues with lower budgets, to make this clear. The issue, that there are only few good teams and many much weaker is worst in Challenge cup, which results in the most predictable results in the first rounds. I would prefer, if the plan a few years ago would be performed, to fuse CEV and Challenge cup into one competition and make groups of four according rankings, this would not overcome this issue, but make things less extreme.


    Of course there is a bias of every fan about its own league, and because German VBL is now considered as fourth best, there are many (often much) weaker. There is no good solution of all of it. Remember, that teams from the three strongest leagues hate to play lower than CL, while even VBL teams declined slots there for this season (with some reasons, which can be accepted, while it is putting the league ranking at CEV at risk). And the current ranking system does anything but guaranteeing teams to play in an adequate European cups competition, partly the clubs themselves are guilty of making clearly wrong decisions in this regard too.


    For example there should be a per-team ranking too, but only a league ranking with ordering simply one-after-another by last national leagues and cups outcomes. This would take care of the difference of some leagues with one, two or three, even maybe four outstanding teams, and a big gap behind.

  • Semis are now


    Bursa vs. Nantes, where Bursa is the clear-cut favourite and


    Olympiacos PIRAEUS vs. Dynamo KRASNODAR, where the Greek team is better IMHO: Krasnodar plays a really bad season...

  • Krasnodar (with Sokolova) was ahead with 8-3 (?) in the tie-break but Olympiacos could close the gap with Hippe serving and eventually prevail. Should be an interesting 2nd match.

  • In the 4th set Krasnodar lead 14-6...


    Yes, Krasnodar players have a major issue in their heads: they quickly collapse, when things become difficult, and Olympiacos is a great fighting team, using this weakness to the full extent. Remember, that Krasnodar won just one match in Russian superleague this season and is clearly trailing the league. They have nearly no self-confidence.

  • Olympiacos seems to have a good team spirit, yes. Also quite a bit of continuity in their starting line-up and coaching, looks like they "only" changed their foreign OH duo before the season (and Poll and Niemer both seem to do fine). Also the slide attacks with Lamprousi are very nice to watch. Good serving is also a very important part of their success, IMO.