The 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup was the inaugural edition of the

FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup The FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup is 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 first tournament was played between 20 and 24 ...

, 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, Porto, Portugal () is a city and a municipality in the northern Porto district of Portugal, bordered in the south by the city of Porto (8 km from the city centre). The population in 2011 was 175,478, and covered an area of approx ...

, Portugal from 20 to 24 June 2018.

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

won the title, defeating

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. Th ...

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, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, the last placed challenger team after the 2018 edition.

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

defeated

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

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 called snake seeding) is a method employed in the organization of a competition to define the seeded teams and arrange them in 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 the ...

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 Volleyball Men's Challenger Cup is 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 first tournament was played between 20 and 24 ...

Sport in Matosinhos