Luxembourg, January 23, 2020. Four games were planned on Thursday to close out the fourth leg of the women's CEV Champions League. After the victories, on the previous days, of Eczacibasi VitrA ISTANBUL, Fenerbahce Opet ISTANBUL, Savino Del Bene SCANDICCI, A. Carraro Imoco CONEGLIANO, NANTES VB, and Uralochka-NTMK EKATERINBURG, eight new teams were hoping to get the win. The matches were the following: Dinamo MOSCOW vs Maritza PLOVDIV, VakifBank ISTANBUL vs Nova KBM Branik MARIBOR, ŁKS Commercecon ŁÓDŹ vs Khimik YUZHNY, and Igor Gorgonzola NOVARA vs Allianz MTV STUTTGART.

In the first match, the third team from Istanbul to play this week won again, 3-0, against the Slovenians of Maribor. Never in a position to question the Turkish domination, the last team of Pool B with four losses quickly yielded (15, 11, 10). In this encounter, Isabelle Haak (see quote below) ended best scorer of the match with 16 points.

Then, the match-up between Moscow and Plovdiv was tighter, with the first true upset of this leg: the Bulgarians won their first match of this year's Champions League and can still hope to qualify for the quarterfinals in this very homogeneous Pool E. Aleksandra Milanova scored 18 points for her squad as Dinamo were missing their superstar Nataliya Goncharova due to illness and Irina Fetisova had just returned from sustaining a minor injury. The result accounts for Maritza's first-ever away win in the pool stage of the Champions League. Amazingly, it came against the most decorated team in the history of the competition - 11-time continental champions Dinamo. 

Later that night, the Polish players of Lodz claimed the throne in Pool C, waiting for the last game of the evening to unfold. Indeed, they beat Yuzhny 3-1 despite a good resistance. Monika Bociek helped her own team win the match with her 21 points overall.

Finally, Novara took their revenge against Stuttgart after losing in Germany in November. They swept their opponents in straight sets to secure their seventh win a row (considering domestic competitions as well) and claimed back the first place of Pool C from Lodz. Elitsa Vasileva scored 16 points in his match as the visitors were missing their star player and top scorer Krystal Rivers. This pool has now two co-leaders with 8 points and Stuttgart right behind with 7 - but with one win less. We are looking forward to the last two matches in February!

Match by match

Dinamo MOSCOW (RUS) vs Maritza PLOVDIV (BUL) 1-3 (23-25, 25-18, 23-25, 17-25)

“It is difficult to say something after defeats. I think everything that I will say would sound like an excuse. We have had problems from the very beginning of the season.”
Yana Shcherban, player of Dinamo MOSCOW

“We are very happy to beat this strong team. They were impressive in attack, but we were well prepared. It was difficult to pass their block, but finally we won. Did we believe in such a result? We could not be sure such a tough match would have ended this way, but we were definitely ready to fight.”
Jennifer Cross, player of Maritza PLOVDIV