Luxembourg, February 24, 2020.  The first-leg games in seven of the eight quarterfinal series of the men’s CEV Volleyball Cup 2020 and CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup 2020 are set to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with an all-Turkish clash between Galatasaray HDI Istanbul and Arkas Izmir and an all-French duel between Rennes Volley 35 and Montpellier Castelnau UC drawing the most attention among the match-ups.


CEV Cup

The magnificent Burhan Felek in Istanbul will host the first encounter between last year’s CEV Cup runners-up Galatasaray and their visitors from Izmir on Wednesday at 19:00 local time. The team from Istanbul arrived at this stage with two narrow escapes in the previous rounds. After a straight-set loss at Dukla Liberec in their second sixteenthfinal game, Galatasaray had to come up with a 15-11 golden set win to overcome their Czech opponent. In the eighthfinals, the Turkish squad almost wasted their first-leg advantage against C.S. Municipal Arcada Galati, losing the first two sets of the re-match in Romania, but came back to win the next two and emerge with a spot in the quarterfinals. Arkas were more stable in their matches so far, winning all four of them – 3-0 away and 3-1 at home against Romania’s Dinamo Bucharest in the sixteenthfinals and 3-2 away and 3-0 at home against Germany’s United Volleys Frankfurt in the eighthfinals. The two Turkish strongholds met twice in their domestic league this season, exchanging away victories, with Galatasaray winning in Izmir in five sets in November and Arkas claiming a four-set win in Istanbul earlier this month. In the current standings, Arkas are second on a 14-5 win-loss record, edging third-placed Galatasaray (13-6).

Whichever Turkish team make it to the semifinals, there they will have to face the winner of the quarterfinal series between France’s GFC Ajaccio and Italy’s Leo Shoes Modena. The first encounter between these two sides will take place on Wednesday at 20:00 local time in western Corsica.

An all-Russian clash in the semifinals is quite possible, if Lokomotiv Novosibirsk and Zenit Saint Petersburg live up to their status of favourites in the quarterfinal match-ups with Lindemans Aalst and Hypo Tirol AlpenVolleys Haching, respectively. Zenit travel to Germany for the first-leg game on Tuesday at 18:30 local time in Unterhaching, while Lokomotiv welcome their Belgian opponents to Siberia at 19:00 local time on Wednesday.




Challenge Cup

While the first-leg game between Italy’s Allianz Powervolley Milano and Estonia’s Saaremaa VC of the Challenge Cup quarterfinals has been postponed because of the recent coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy, the remaining three matches on this week’s programme are still set to get underway as scheduled.

The all-French encounter between Rennes Volley 35 and Montpellier Castelnau UC will start on Wednesday at 20:00 local time at the Colette Besson in Rennes. In late November, Rennes defeated Montpellier in a four-set French league match at home and now they are running neck and neck in the standings – Montpellier are second on 45 points and a 16-6 win-loss record, followed by third-placed Rennes on 44 and 15-7. Rennes expect to be able to count on some 1,700 home fans - while Montpellier will rely on the tactics developed by their experienced coach Olivier Lecat.

The race towards the semifinals in CEV’s third-tier club tournament is set to start on Tuesday in the Turkish capital, where Spor Toto SC Ankara entertain Czechia’s VK CEZ Karlovarsko at 18:00 local time.

Later on the same day, at 19:00 local time in the Hungarian capital, Penzugyor Budapest host last season’s semifinalists Sporting Club Lisboa of Portugal.




For more info, go to the CEV Cup 2020 and the CEV Challenge Cup 2020 sections.