Anticipation heats up as #CLVolleyW pool stage gets closer

What makes a league really a league is the home-and-away round-robin format. That is why the pool stage of CEV Champions League Volley is what volleyball fans consider to be in the core of the race for club continental honours and always anticipate it with great excitement. Of course, the 2022 edition of the most prestigious club competition in European women’s volleyball makes no exception, so with its pool stage only eight days away, let’s take a look at what’s ahead.

As usual, 20 of Europe’s best club teams will compete in five pools of four. In each pool, a double round robin will unfold in 12 matches played across six legs of action, starting next week and finishing mid-February. The five pool winners as well as the three best-ranked pool runners-up will eventually advance to the quarterfinals, the first round of the knockout stage.

Azerbaijani referee Eldar Zulfugarov will blow the first whistle of this Champions League season’s pool stage as 11-time European champs Dinamo Moscow, the most decorated team in the history of the competition, and new Czech champions Dukla Liberec take to the court in the Russian capital for their Pool C fixture on Tuesday, November 23, at 19:00 local time. Two days later, 2019 champions Igor Gorgonzola Novara of Italy will welcome Turkish newcomers THY Istanbul for the other first-leg game in that pool.

Pool A will be the second to open for business. Also on Tuesday, at 18:00 local time in Poland, Developres SkyRes Rzeszow will host Dresdner, the champions of neighbouring Germany. An interesting clash between the champions of Russia and Ukraine is set to take place on Wednesday, November 24, as Lokomotiv Kaliningrad Region entertain Champions League rookies Prometey Dnipro in the second Pool A match.

VakifBank Istanbul, 2021 Champions League finalists and one of Europe’s representatives at next month’s FIVB Club World Championship, are the clear favourites in Pool C. They will open their new continental campaign with a home fixture against Italy’s Vero Volley Monza on the 24th, a day after the other two teams in the pool, French champs ASPTT Mulhouse and Finnish titleholders LP Salo, meet in Mulhouse.

Both first-leg fixtures in Pool E are scheduled on Wednesday. The 2021 champions of Poland and Hungary, Grupa Azoty Chemik Police and Fatum Nyiregyhaza, respectively, will get the race going at 18:00 local time in Szczecin. 90 minutes later, defending crown-holders and reigning club world champions A. Carraro Imoco Conegliano of Italy, who made headlines on Sunday by tying VakifBank’s Guinness world record of 73 consecutive wins in all competitions, will welcome Serbian rookies Ub.

Pool D is the last one to get underway, as France’s Beziers Volley host Bulgarian champions Maritza Plovdiv on Wednesday at 20:00 local time in Narbonne. On Thursday, another Turkish participant in the upcoming Club World Championship, Fenerbahce Opet Istanbul, will engage in a titanic battle with Russian powerhouse Dinamo-Ak Bars Kazan.