2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup

The 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup was the inaugural edition of the FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup, a new annual men's international volleyball tournament contested by six national teams that acts as a qualifier for the FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League.^[1][2][3] The tournament was held in Matosinhos, Portugal from 20 to 24 June 2018.^[4]

2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup

Challenger Cup de Masculino Portugal 2018
Tournament details
Host nation	Portugal
City	Matosinhos
Dates	20–24 June
Teams	6 (from 4 confederations)
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Champions	Portugal (1st title)
Runners-up	Czech Republic
Third place	Estonia
Fourth place	Cuba
Tournament statistics
Matches played	10
Attendance	11,952 (1,195 per match)
Best scorer	Miguel Gutiérrez (67 points)
Best spiker	Alexandre Ferreira (58.89%)
Best blocker	Nodirkhan Kadirkhanov (1.14 Avg)
Best server	Alexandre Ferreira (0.62 Avg)
Best setter	Matias Banda (26.57 Avg)
Best digger	Dusan Bonacic (2.00 Avg)
Best receiver	Vicente Parraguirre (32.73%)
Official website
Volleyball Challenger Cup
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Portugal won the title, defeating Czech Republic in the final, and earned the right to participate in the 2019 Nations League replacing South Korea, the last placed challenger team after the 2018 edition. Estonia defeated Cuba in the 3rd place match.^[5]

Qualification

Main article: 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup qualification

A total of 6 teams qualified for the tournament.^[1]

Country	Confederation	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances			Previous best performance
				Total	First	Last
Kazakhstan1	AVC	Asian Qualifier winners	20 May 2018	0	None		None
Chile1	CSV	South American Qualifier winners	20 May 2018	0	None		None
Portugal	CEV	Host country	6 June 2018	0	None		None
Cuba	NORCECA	North American Qualifier winners	9 June 2018	0	None		None
Estonia	CEV	2018 European Golden League champions	13 June 2018	0	None		None
Czech Republic	CEV	2018 European Golden League runners-up	13 June 2018	0	None		None

1.^ Originally, the CAVB would have a direct spot in the Challenger Cup, while the representatives from AVC and CSV would play a playoff for a spot. However, FIVB fined the CAVB for not hosting any kind of qualifier event and the winners of the AVC and CSV qualifier booked a direct qualification.^[6]

Pools composition

Teams were seeded following the serpentine system according to their FIVB World Ranking as of 7 July 2017.^[7] FIVB reserved the right to seed the hosts as head of pool A regardless of the World Ranking. Rankings are shown in brackets except the hosts who ranked 30th.

Pool A	Pool B
Portugal (Hosts)	Cuba (16)
Estonia (32)	Czech Republic (27)
Kazakhstan (35)	Chile (41)

Squads

Venue

• Centro de Desportos e Congressos de Matosinhos, Matosinhos, Portugal

Pool standing procedure

1. Number of matches won
2. Match points
3. Sets ratio
4. Points ratio
5. Result of the last match between the tied teams

Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 match points for the winner, 0 match points for the loser
Match won 3–2: 2 match points for the winner, 1 match point for the loser

Preliminary round

• All times are Western European Summer Time (UTC+01:00).

Pool A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Portugal	2	2	0	6	6	0	MAX	150	113	1.327	Semifinals
2	Estonia	2	1	1	3	3	4	0.750	149	161	0.925
3	Kazakhstan	2	0	2	0	1	6	0.167	144	169	0.852

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
20 Jun	21:00	Portugal	3–0	Estonia	25–19	25–16	25–20			75–55	P2 Report
21 Jun	18:00	Estonia	3–1	Kazakhstan	25–22	19–25	25–19	25–20		94–86	P2 Report
22 Jun	21:00	Kazakhstan	0–3	Portugal	23–25	19–25	16–25			58–75	P2 Report

Pool B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Czech Republic	2	2	0	6	6	0	MAX	150	112	1.339	Semifinals
2	Cuba	2	1	1	3	3	4	0.750	179	183	0.978
3	Chile	2	0	2	0	1	6	0.167	158	192	0.823

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
20 Jun	18:00	Cuba	0–3	Czech Republic	19–25	22–25	21–25			62–75	P2 Report
21 Jun	21:00	Czech Republic	3–0	Chile	25–15	25–17	25–18			75–50	P2 Report
22 Jun	18:00	Chile	1–3	Cuba	36–38	22–25	31–29	19–25		108–117	P2 Report

Final round

• All times are Western European Summer Time (UTC+01:00).

	Semifinals				Final
	23 June – Matosinhos
	Czech Republic	3
					24 June – Matosinhos
	Estonia	1
					Czech Republic	1
	23 June – Matosinhos
					Portugal	3
	Portugal	3
	Cuba	0
					3rd place match
					24 June – Matosinhos
					Estonia	3
					Cuba	0

Semifinals

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
23 Jun	15:00	Czech Republic	3–1	Estonia	29–31	27–25	25–18	25–21		106–95	P2 Report
23 Jun	18:00	Portugal	3–0	Cuba	25–22	25–21	26–24			76–67	P2 Report

3rd place match

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
24 Jun	15:00	Estonia	3–0	Cuba	30–28	25–21	25–16			80–65	Report

Final

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
24 Jun	18:00	Czech Republic	1–3	Portugal	25–18	22–25	19–25	16–25		82–93	Report

Final standing

Rank Team  Portugal  Czech Republic  Estonia 4  Cuba 5  Chile  Kazakhstan Qualified for the 2019 Nations League Source: VCC 2018 final standing

2018 Men's Challenger Cup champions  Portugal 1st title 13–man Roster Caique da Silva, José Belo, Filip Cveticanin, Marco Ferreira, Alexandre Ferreira (c), Januário Silva, José Monteiro, João Simões, Phelipe Martins, Lourenço Martins, Valdir Sequeira, Miguel Tavares Rodrigues, João Fidalgo Head coach Hugo Silva

See also

• 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League
• 2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup