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2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup
Challenger Cup de Masculino; Portugal 2018
Tournament details
Host nation	Portugal
City	Matosinhos
Dates	20–24 June
Teams	6 (from 4 confederations)
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Champions	Portugal (1st title)
Runners-up	Czech Republic
Third place	Estonia
Fourth place	Cuba
Tournament statistics
Matches played	10
Attendance	11,952 (1,195 per match)
Best scorer	Miguel Gutiérrez (67 points)
Best spiker	Alexandre Ferreira (58.89%)
Best blocker	Nodirkhan Kadirkhanov (1.14 Avg)
Best server	Alexandre Ferreira (0.62 Avg)
Best setter	Matias Banda (26.57 Avg)
Best digger	Dusan Bonacic (2.00 Avg)
Best receiver	Vicente Parraguirre (32.73%)
Official website
	Volleyball Challenger Cup
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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 tournament contested by six national teams that acts as a qualifier for the FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League.^[1]^[2]^[3] The tournament was held in Matosinhos, Portugal from 20 to 24 June 2018.^[4]

Portugal won the title, defeating Czech Republic in the final, and earned the right to participate in the 2019 Nations League replacing South Korea, the last placed challenger team after the 2018 edition. Estonia defeated Cuba in the 3rd place match.^[5]

Qualification

A total of 6 teams qualified for the tournament.^[1]

Country	Confederation	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances			Previous best performance
Country	Confederation	Qualified as	Qualified on	Total	First	Last	Previous best performance
Kazakhstan¹	AVC	Asian Qualifier winners	20 May 2018	0	None		None
Chile¹	CSV	South American Qualifier winners	20 May 2018	0	None		None
Portugal	CEV	Host country	6 June 2018	0	None		None
Cuba	NORCECA	North American Qualifier winners	9 June 2018	0	None		None
Estonia	CEV	2018 European Golden League champions	13 June 2018	0	None		None
Czech Republic	CEV	2018 European Golden League runners-up	13 June 2018	0	None		None

1.^ Originally, the CAVB would have a direct spot in the Challenger Cup, while the representatives from AVC and CSV would play a playoff for a spot. However, FIVB fined the CAVB for not hosting any kind of qualifier event and the winners of the AVC and CSV qualifier booked a direct qualification.^[6]

Pools composition

Teams were seeded following the serpentine system according to their FIVB World Ranking as of 7 July 2017.^[7] 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.

Pool A	Pool B
Portugal (Hosts)	Cuba (16)
Estonia (32)	Czech Republic (27)
Kazakhstan (35)	Chile (41)

Squads

Venue

Centro de Desportos e Congressos de Matosinhos, 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 (UTC+01:00).

Pool A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Portugal	2	2	0	6	6	0	MAX	150	113	1.327	Semifinals
2	Estonia	2	1	1	3	3	4	0.750	149	161	0.925	Semifinals
3	Kazakhstan	2	0	2	0	1	6	0.167	144	169	0.852

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Total	Report
20 Jun	21:00	Portugal	3–0	Estonia	25–19	25–16	25–20		75–55	P2 Report
21 Jun	18:00	Estonia	3–1	Kazakhstan	25–22	19–25	25–19	25–20	94–86	P2 Report
22 Jun	21:00	Kazakhstan	0–3	Portugal	23–25	19–25	16–25		58–75	P2 Report

Pool B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Czech Republic	2	2	0	6	6	0	MAX	150	112	1.339	Semifinals
2	Cuba	2	1	1	3	3	4	0.750	179	183	0.978	Semifinals
3	Chile	2	0	2	0	1	6	0.167	158	192	0.823

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Total	Report
20 Jun	18:00	Cuba	0–3	Czech Republic	19–25	22–25	21–25		62–75	P2 Report
21 Jun	21:00	Czech Republic	3–0	Chile	25–15	25–17	25–18		75–50	P2 Report
22 Jun	18:00	Chile	1–3	Cuba	36–38	22–25	31–29	19–25	108–117	P2 Report

Final round

All times are Western European Summer Time (UTC+01:00).

Semifinals		Final

23 June – Matosinhos

Czech Republic	3
		24 June – Matosinhos
Estonia	1
		Czech Republic	1
23 June – Matosinhos
		Portugal	3
Portugal	3

Cuba	0
		3rd place match

		24 June – Matosinhos

		Estonia	3

		Cuba	0

Semifinals

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
23 Jun	15:00	Czech Republic	3–1	Estonia	29–31	27–25	25–18	25–21		106–95	P2 Report
23 Jun	18:00	Portugal	3–0	Cuba	25–22	25–21	26–24			76–67	P2 Report