Europe’s professional volleyball teams spend most of their seasons competing in their country’s league. You’ve got Italy’s Serie A, Russia’s Super League, Turkey’s simply named Turkish League, and France’s Ligue A, just to name a few.

The CEV Champions League, on the other hand, offers a unique opportunity for the top teams from these national leagues to compete against each other and crown the best professional team on the continent. 

Not only does Champions League feature the best volleyball in the world from October to May, but it’s also a great place to see your favorite Team USA players in action while the national team is in its offseason. 

Admittedly, for the American audience, which is mostly unfamiliar with the CEV Champions League, the format isn’t exactly straightforward, so we’ll do our best to break it down for you. 

The Teams

The 2019 CEV Champions League features 27 women’s teams and 34 men’s, the best-of-the-best from Europe’s most prestigious professional volleyball leagues. 

The Format

This eight-month-long tournament is made up of three rounds of qualification followed by a fourth round, also known as the group stage, and then playoffs. 

The group stage features five pools of four teams and the pools follow a double-round-robin format with each team in the pool playing the other three teams twice, at home and away.

The top eight teams from the group stage advance to the quarterfinals, which is seeded like a traditional eight-team single-elimination tournament, however, each pair of teams still plays two matches, at home and away, to determine which team moves on, until the final round, when the semifinal winners play in the championship match and the losers face off for third place.

Since the men’s and women’s tournaments have different numbers of teams, the qualification rounds look slightly different, however, in both tournaments, 18 teams earn an automatic berth into the group stage (fourth round) and the final two teams in the group stage are determined through the qualification rounds.

Here’s another way to look at it: 

Where We Are Now

Right now, we’re in the midst of the second round of qualification. On the women’s side, Sliedrecht Sport eliminated UVC Holding Graz in the first round. The first round of the men’s tournament saw OK Mladost Brcko, Mladost Zagreb, Viking TIF Bergen, Lindemans Aalst, Abiant Lycurgus Groningen, Shakhtior Soligorsk, Ford Store Levoranta Sastamala, and VRCK Kazincbarcika be eliminated. 

The women’s matchups currently going on in the second round are: VK UP Olomouc vs. CSM Volei Alba Blaj; Sliedrecht Sport vs. Allianz MTV Stuttgart; ZOK Bimal-Jedinstvo Brcko vs. ASPTT Mulhouse VB; and Swietelsky Bekescsaba vs. Budowlani Łódź. 

On the men’s side the ongoing matchups are: Neftohimic 2010 Burgas vs. Vojvodina NS Seme Novi Sad; CV Teruel vs. Chaumont VB 52 HM; United Volleys Frankfurt vs. Posojilnica AICH/DOB; and Paok Thessaloniki vs. Istanbul BBSK. 

The second round wraps up on Wednesday, Oct. 31, and only four teams from each gender will move on to the third round in hopes of securing the two available spots in the group stage.

The CEV season for both the men and women streams LIVE on FloVolleyball.