{"id":945706,"date":"2026-03-24T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/?p=945706"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:07:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:07:04","slug":"bitka-za-torino-osam-velikana-u-lovu-na-evropsku-krunu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/sport\/bitka-za-torino-osam-velikana-u-lovu-na-evropsku-krunu\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle for Turin: Eight greats in the hunt for the European crown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The circle is closing \u2013 who is going to Turin, for the final tournament?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Polish derby for history<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The clash is attracting the most attention&nbsp;<strong>Warsaw \u2013 Lublin<\/strong>, a duel that guarantees that Poland will have at least one participant in the Final Four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lublin is having a dream season \u2013 the first debutant in history to achieve a 100% performance in the Champions League group stage, and has already won domestic trophies. Led by a phenomenal&nbsp;<strong>Wilfredo Leon&nbsp;<\/strong>&nbsp;four-time European champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, Warsaw is coming off an epic comeback against Trentino and is aiming for their first top-four finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\"We gave everything \u2013 our heart, our health, our emotions \u2013 and we managed to turn it around. If we want something big, we have to beat everyone,\" he said.\u00a0<strong>The jury is cool.\u00a0<\/strong>from Warsaw, MVP of the decisive match against Trentino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, Lublin has won all three head-to-head matches this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Does the champion fall?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Spanish&nbsp;<strong>Las Palmas<\/strong>&nbsp;chasing history against the current European champion&nbsp;<strong>Perugia<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 a team that has 82 victories in the elite European competition and a streak of 10 consecutive triumphs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Spaniards have never beaten an Italian team in the Champions League (0-24), but the Canary Islands side are in great form and believe they can make a splash \u2013 at least on home soil. Their trump card is unstoppable.&nbsp;<strong>Reply&nbsp;<\/strong>(194 points this season in the Champions League), while experience brings the legendary&nbsp;<strong>Osmani Huantorena<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perugia, led by&nbsp;<strong>Gianelli<\/strong>&nbsp;i&nbsp;<strong>Ben Tarom<\/strong>, defends the title and comes to the Canary Islands as the world club champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\"We have to be patient - they don't give anything away, not a single point, they make you work hard,\" warned libero Perug\u0111e.\u00a0<strong>Masimo Kola\u0107i<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lube against the \"Polish curse\"<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lube Civitanova<\/strong>&nbsp;wants to end a bad streak against Polish clubs, who have eliminated the team from Macerata in the last five seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The opponent is last year's Champions League finalist.\u00a0<strong>Conspiracy<\/strong>, and the Italians enter the match full of confidence after eliminating Trentino in the domestic championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\"I expect an extremely close duel. They run one of the strongest leagues in Europe, which is Poland,\" he said.\u00a0<strong>Worth D'Hir<\/strong>, a Belgian in the ranks of Lub\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Replay of the final and the fight for a breakthrough<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Re\u0161ovia<\/strong>&nbsp;i&nbsp;<strong>Zirat Bank<\/strong>&nbsp;They are meeting for the first time in the Champions League, but they already have a history of mutual duels, and what a history \u2013 the Turks celebrated in the final of the CEV Cup in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zirat comes in as the most dominant team of the group stage (6\/6 wins), led by the unstoppable&nbsp;<strong>Nimir Abdel-Aziz&nbsp;<\/strong>(138 points total).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Re\u0161ovija seeks return to European elite, and form will be key&nbsp;<strong>Karola Butrina<\/strong>, who is on the verge of 100 points for the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Couples<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tuesday<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Warsaw \u2013 Lublin Project (6 p.m.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Las Palmas \u2013 Perugia (8 p.m.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wednesday<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Re\u0161ovija \u2013 Zirat Bank (6 p.m.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lube \u0106ivitanova \u2013 Zavjer\u0107e (8 p.m.)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The eight best teams in Europe are entering the decisive phase of the CEV Champions League \u2013 the quarterfinals are next, bringing clashes between the greats and big volleyball stories.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":945709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[20138,776],"naslovna":[],"class_list":["post-945706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-cev-liga-sampiona-za-odbojkase","tag-odbojka"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":945710,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945706\/revisions\/945710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945706"},{"taxonomy":"naslovna","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naslovna?post=945706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}