2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup

The 2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup was the second edition of the FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup, an annual men's international volleyball tournament contested by six national teams that acts as a qualifier for the FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League. The tournament was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia from 3 to 7 July 2019.^[1]

2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup

Pokal FIVB Odbojka Challenger Slovenija 2019
Tournament details
Host nation	Slovenia
City	Ljubljana
Dates	3–7 July
Teams	6 (from 4 confederations)
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Champions	Slovenia (1st title)
Runners-up	Cuba
Third place	Belarus
Fourth place	Turkey
Tournament statistics
Matches played	10
Attendance	3,480 (348 per match)
Best scorer	Pavel Kuklinski (71 points)
Best spiker	Marlon Yant (59.38%)
Best blocker	Siarhei Busel (0.76 Avg)
Best server	Kanstantsin Tsiushkevich (0.88 Avg)
Best setter	Gregor Ropret (6.21 Avg)
Best digger	Sebastian Castillo (2.17 Avg)
Best receiver	Sebastian Castillo (24.39%)
Official website
Volleyball Challenger Cup
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Slovenia won the title, defeating Cuba in the final, and earned the right to participate in the 2020 Nations League replacing Portugal, the last placed challenger team after the 2019 edition. Belarus defeated Turkey in the 3rd place match.^[2]

On 8 May 2020, FIVB announced that the 2020 Nations League and 2020 Challenger Cup was canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic. So the tournament eventually became the 2021 Nations League qualifier.

Qualification

Main article: 2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup qualification

A total of 6 teams qualified for the tournament.

Country	Confederation	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances			Previous best performance
				Total	First	Last
Slovenia	CEV	Host country	December 2018	0	None		None
Cuba	NORCECA	North American Qualifier winners	1 June 2019	1	2018		4th place (2018)
Egypt	CAVB	1st World ranked team from CAVB	12 June 2019	0	None		None
Chile1	CSV	2019 Pan-American Cup best finishing team from CSV	21 June 2019	1	2018		5th place (2018)
Belarus	CEV	2019 European Golden League runners-up	21 June 2019	0	None		None
Turkey	CEV	2019 European Golden League champions	21 June 2019	0	None		None

1.^ Originally, the representatives from AVC and CSV would play a playoff for a spot. But, South Korea, chosen by FIVB, refused to represent the AVC. So the AVC–CSV playoff was canceled and the representatives from CSV booked a direct qualification.

Pools composition

Teams were seeded following the serpentine system according to their FIVB World Ranking as of 1 October 2018.^[3] FIVB reserved the right to seed the hosts as head of pool A regardless of the World Ranking. Not more than two teams from the same Continental Confederation can go into a same pool. In case the third team from the same Continental Confederation is placed in the same pool as per the World Ranking, the third team will move to the other pool. Rankings are shown in brackets except the hosts who ranked 17th.

Pool A	Pool B
Slovenia (Hosts)	Egypt (13)
Turkey (33)	Cuba (18)
Chile (37)	Belarus (48)

Squads

Main article: 2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup squads

Venue

All matches
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Arena Stožice
Capacity: 12,480

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 Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Slovenia	2	2	0	6	6	1	6.000	173	122	1.418	Semifinals
2	Turkey	2	1	1	3	4	3	1.333	148	155	0.955
3	Chile	2	0	2	0	0	6	0.000	106	150	0.707

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
3 Jul	20:40	Slovenia	3–0	Chile	25–15	25–15	25–19			75–49	P2 Report
4 Jul	20:30	Turkey	3–0	Chile	25–13	25–22	25–22			75–57	P2 Report
5 Jul	20:40	Slovenia	3–1	Turkey	23–25	25–16	25–15	25–17		98–73	P2 Report

Pool B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Cuba	2	2	0	5	6	3	2.000	206	184	1.120	Semifinals
2	Belarus	2	1	1	2	4	5	0.800	193	195	0.990
3	Egypt	2	0	2	2	4	6	0.667	197	217	0.908

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
3 Jul	17:30	Egypt	2–3	Belarus	25–21	16–25	25–20	24–26	9–15	99–107	P2 Report
4 Jul	17:30	Cuba	3–1	Belarus	25–20	21–25	25–21	25–20		96–86	P2 Report
5 Jul	17:30	Egypt	2–3	Cuba	23–25	18–25	25–23	25–22	7–15	98–110	P2 Report

Final round

• All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

	Semifinals				Final
	6 July – Ljubljana
	Cuba	3
					7 July – Ljubljana
	Turkey	2
					Cuba	0
	6 July – Ljubljana
					Slovenia	3
	Slovenia	3
	Belarus	1
					3rd place match
					7 July – Ljubljana
					Turkey	1
					Belarus	3

Semifinals

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
6 Jul	17:30	Cuba	3–2	Turkey	22–25	25–23	25–22	20–25	15–12	107–107	P2 Report
6 Jul	20:45	Slovenia	3–1	Belarus	21–25	27–25	25–20	25–18		98–88	P2 Report

Third place match

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
7 Jul	17:30	Turkey	1–3	Belarus	20–25	25–20	16–25	20–25		81–95	P2 Report

Final

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
7 Jul	20:30	Cuba	0–3	Slovenia	24–26	21–25	21–25			66–76	P2 Report

Final standing

Rank Team  Slovenia  Cuba  Belarus 4  Turkey 5  Egypt 6  Chile Qualified for the 2021 Nations League Source: VCC 2019 final standings

2019 Men's Challenger Cup champions  Slovenia 1st title 14–man Roster Tonček Štern, Alen Pajenk, Jan Kozamernik, Alen Šket, Mitja Gasparini, Dejan Vinčić, Sašo Štalekar, Žiga Štern, Jani Kovačič, Urban Toman, Matic Videčnik, Gregor Ropret, Tine Urnaut (c), Klemen Čebulj Head coach Alberto Giuliani

See also

• 2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League
• 2019 FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup