Bucharest, Romania, May 3, 2018.  With only two days to go before the Final Four of the 2018 CEV Volleyball Champions League - Women, the city of Bucharest is bracing itself for the big event. The four participating teams have already arrived and Sala Polivalenta in the Romanian capital is all set to welcome them and the thousands of fans expected to attend the #CLF4Bucharest showdown over the weekend.



To kick off the Final Four event, the hosting club CSM Volei Alba BLAJ gave a press conference for the Romanian media at the venue on Thursday afternoon. “It is a great opportunity for our club and for our players to write a page of history, adding to the already great achievement of reaching the Final Four,” said Darko Zakoc, head coach of the Romanian team, which will face Turkey’s Galatasaray SK ISTANBUL in one of the semifinals on Saturday, starting at 19:00 local time. “We are completely focused on our first match and I hope we come out with a great performance and a great result.”



An official pre-event media meeting is also scheduled for Friday at 13:00 at the Grand Continental Hotel in Bucharest, where both the Romanian and the international media attending the Final Four will get a chance to interact with the coaches and the captains of the four teams. After this event, some of the players will take part in a tree-planting initiative in one of the city parks, stressing further CEV’s commitment to their ongoing Green Way campaign.

“If there is a final game, Galatasaray is the number one candidate to get the cup,” coach Ataman Güneyligil said during a press conference his club held in Istanbul before leaving for Bucharest.



In the earlier semifinal at 16:00 on Saturday, the other Turkish participant, VakifBank ISTANBUL, will battle against Italy’s Imoco Volley CONEGLIANO in a remake of the 2017 final.

“This Final Four is very complicated because especially in the semifinal we will be facing a team that plays incredibly good Volleyball and they just won the national league title in Italy,” commented Giovanni Guidetti, head coach of VakifBank. “Imoco Volley have been playing at a very high level this season and it will be a great challenge to compete against them.”



The head coach of injury-ridden Imoco, Daniele Santarelli, said, “We have done wonders throughout the season and although we are not the favourites, we will try to have a great semifinal against VakifBank, the number one team in Europe.”



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