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 Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

tournament contested by six national teams that acts as a qualifier for the

FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League The FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League is an annual international volleyball competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The first tournament took place between ...

. The tournament was held in

Matosinhos Matosinhos () is a City#Portugal, city and a Concelho, municipality in the district of Porto District, Porto in Portugal. The municipality covers an area of approximately and had 172,557 inhabitants in 2021. It is bordered by the municipalities o ...

, Portugal from 20 to 24 June 2018.

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

won the title, defeating

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

in the final, and earned the right to participate in the 2019 Nations League replacing

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, the last placed challenger team after the 2018 edition.

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

defeated

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

in the 3rd place match.

Qualification

A total of 6 teams qualified for the tournament.

Pools composition

Teams were seeded following the

serpentine system The serpentine system, also known as snake seeding, is a method of organization used in competitions to define the seeded teams and arrange them into pools. The ''n'' ranked teams that will be involved in the tournament are distributed in ''m'' ...

according to their

FIVB World Ranking The FIVB Senior World Rankings is a ranking system for men's and women's national teams in volleyball. The teams of the member nations of Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), volleyball's world governing body, are ranked based on their ...

as of 7 July 2017. 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.

Squads

Venue

* Centro de Desportos e Congressos de Matosinhos,

, Portugal

Pool standing procedure

# Number of matches won # Match points # Sets ratio # Points ratio # 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 Western European Summer Time (WEST, UTC+01:00) is a summer daylight saving time scheme, 1 hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and Coordinated Universal Time. It is used in: * the Canary Islands * Portugal (including Madeira but not the Azores) * th ...

( UTC+01:00).

Pool A

Pool B

Final round

*All times are

( UTC+01:00).

Semifinals

3rd place match

Final

Final standing

References

External links

Fédération Internationale de Volleyball
– official website
2018 Challenger Cup
– official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Volleyball, Challenger Cup, Men, 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup FIVB 2018 in Portuguese sport International volleyball competitions hosted by Portugal

FIVB Volleyball Men's Challenger Cup The FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup was an international volleyball competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The Challenger Cup served as a qualifying tournam ...

Sport in Matosinhos