From Verona, host city of the last C1 final, to Ljubljana, the workforce of Kedzierzyn-Kozle has evolved a little, with in particular the departure of the French smuggler Benjamin Toniutti, Olympic champion in Tokyo and left for the neighbor of Jastrzebski.

But in the end, facing the same opponent, the Poles were even more imperial.

Last year, it was Aleksander Sliwka who stood out, this time it was his compatriot Kamil Semeniuk, in the same position as receiver-attacker, who shone, delivering his teammates with the seventh match point ( 25-22, 25-20, 32-30).

With 27 points alone, he finished the game as top scorer and offered Kedzierzyn-Kozle a double, and Poland, the land of volleyball par excellence, a third Champions League after that conquered by Sosnowiec in 1978.

"I'm proud to be part of this team. We didn't know if we could repeat what we achieved last year. I couldn't have dreamed of a better way to finish the part of my career with Kedzierzyn", commented Semeniuk, who will leave in the fall for Italy and Perugia.

Guimaraes and Haak respond to Egonu

New nuggets of Italian volleyball, Alessandro Michieletto and Daniele Lavia did not have the expected performance, far from their level during the coronation of the Nazionale in September 2021 at the Euro against Slovenia.

It was ultimately the Serbian centrals Marko Podrascanin and Srecko Lisinac and the Bulgarian veteran Matey Kaziyski who kept Trentino afloat, in vain, overtaken by the Polish power.

Trentino will have to wait a little longer before winning a fourth Champions League, the last dating back to 2011. Since then, the Transalpine have suffered three defeats in the final (2016, 2021 and 2022).

Among the women, VakifBank won its fifth European title after 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2018. Giovanni Guidetti's players thus end five seasons of drought and take their revenge on Conegliano, who beat them last year in Verona in the tie-break.

Faced with 39 points from Poala Egonu, one of the best players on the planet, at the forefront of Conegliano's attack, the Istanbul team responded with Brazilian receiver-attacker Gabriela Guimaraes (23 pts), who scored the coronation point (25-22, 25-21, 23-25, 25-21), and the Swedish point Isabelle Haak (19 pts).

The exclusion of the three Russian clubs - Kazan, Dinamo Moscow and Kaliningrad - following the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army on February 24, changed the situation.

Conegliano, winners of Monza in the quarter-finals, did not need to play a semi-final, where they had to face the winner of the quarter between Dinamo Moscow and Kazan.

© 2022 AFP