After the round of the Playoffs 6 that ended yesterday, the four participants to Cev Champions League Final Four, which will take place at Palaverde on 22nd and 23rd April, are officially determined and therefore the match calendar is also settled.
Saturday 22nd April:
5:00 pm Eczacibasi Istanbul (Tur) – Vafifbank Instanbul (Tur)
8:00 pm Imoco Volley Conegliano (Ita) – Dinamo Mosca (Rus)
Sunday 23rd April:
3:00 pm 3rd/4th place Final
6:00 pm 1st/2nd place FInal
THE FOUR QUEENS
Together with Italy’s reigning champion Imoco Volley, appearing for the first time in a continental Final Four, three authentic European volleyball battleships qualified, three teams with a great history behind and an illustrious pedigree, that can rely on worldwide volleyball superstars in their roster which will make the event at Palaverde unique.
Dinamo Moscow: it will be the Panthers’ opponent in the second semi-final. It reached the Final Four yet undefeated in Champions League going through an impressing path: six victories out of six matches in the league round and another show of strength in the playoffs against Liu Jo Modena winning 3-0 both home and away matches. The team won 10 times the highest European Club competition in the 60s and the 70s. The superstars of the Russian squad, coached by Yuri Panchenko (the only non-Italian coach out of four), are Nataliya Goncharova, Ukrainian Opposite Hitter which became a naturalized Russian citizen and already won a World Championship gold medal in 2010 and two European ones in 2013 and 2015 with her national team, and the Croatian Middle Blocker Malja Polijak that has already won the Champions League four times, the last victory being in 2015 while playing for Eczacibasi.
Eczacibasi Istanbul: the Turkish team won the Champions League in 2015; coached by Italian Massimo Barbolini, this year the team began from the second round of the qualification phase, defeating both Plovdiv and Minsk without losing any of the four matches. In the round-robin phase it qualified as best second place team with 4 victories and 2 losses, both in the derby against VakifBank which will take place one more time in the semi-finals. In the playoffs that just ended it lost the first match against Fenerbahce Istanbul (another Turkish derby) 3-2, but was able to comeback in the home match and qualify by winning 3-1. In the roster there is former Imoco Panther Rachael Adams which won the Italian championship last year and came third in the Olympic Games, and other outstanding players such as Serbian Tijana Boskovic, leading scorer for Serbia and silver medalist of the last Olympic Games, American Larson and Brazilian Thaisa that will unfortunately be KO because of a bad injury.
VakifBank Istanbul: it won the Champions League six times, the last one in 2013, but has always participated to the Final Four since then. In 2014 and in 2016 the team played but lost the final, in 2015 it came third. A clear path with no losses yet for the Turkish team coached by Italian Guidetti, with six victories out of six matches in the round-robin phase and a double victory against Volero Zurich in the playoffs (3-1 both in the away leg in Switzerland and in the home leg in Istanbul yesterday). This team doesn’t lack of superstars either, and can rely on amazing Chinese Outside Hitter Zhu Ting, MVP of both World Championship in 2014 (silver medalist) and Rio Olympic Games in 2016 (Gold medalist), and on American Kimberly Hill (also seen in Novara) gold medalist of 2014 World Championship and bronze medallist of 2016 Olympic Games.
