Fifteen teams landed in the
preliminaries of the Challenger Cup – LEN’s new club competition is set to
begin on Friday and over three days the quarter-finalists shall be determined.
To ensure more playing opportunity as
well as a more balanced playing field, LEN created this new competition for the
lower ranked clubs which tried their luck in the opening qualifying rounds of
the Champions League or the Euro Cup but couldn’t make the cut. In the previous
years, these teams had one appearance and their European season was over by
mid-October – now they can play three more matches (two in one of the groups)
where they face rivals of the same quality.
What’s more, heading to the prelims,
all fifteen teams may even dream of European glory (and history is in the
making as none of the teams have ever got close to claim any silverware at the
international stage).
Based on the nations’ usual
performances, perhaps the two Spanish and two Greek sides stand out, however, they
are definitely not the strongest teams in their country while the other clubs
are either the reigning champions or finished runners-up in their respective
domestic leagues which gives some special flavour to this competition.
The top two sides from each group
shall qualify for the quarter-finals, where group-winners will be drawn against
the second seeded teams.
For livescoring, stats and free
streaming visit https://www.len.eu/disciplines/water-polo/challenger-cup/
Challenger Cup, preliminaries
Group A (Novaky)
KVP Novaky (SVK), Galatasary Istanbul
(TUR), Ydraikos NC (GRE), Tenerife Echeyde (ESP)
Group B (Terrassa)
CN Terrassa (ESP), Het Ravijn (NED),
ASA Tel-Aviv (ISR)
Group C (Sarajevo)
Invictum Sarajevo (BIH), Banja Luka
(BIH), Enka Istanbul (TUR), SKP Kosice (SVK)
Group D (Kranj)
AVK Triglav Kranj (SLO), KVIK Kastrup
(DEN), Apollon Smyrnis (GRE), SC Ludwigsburg 08 (GER)
No comments:
Post a Comment