"Maritsa" (Plovdiv) will again play directly in the Champions League groups. It was officially confirmed by the European Volleyball Confederation. The champions and winners of the National Cup of Bulgaria will have the opportunity to compete with the best teams in Europe for the third consecutive year, having won this right in the early rounds of the most prestigious continental club tournament in the 2017-2018 season, and in the 2018-2019 season they were given the right to start directly from the fourth round - the group stage.
The yellow-blue are one of the 18 teams deserving the privilege to skip the first rounds of the race:
Allianz MTF (Stuttgart, Germany)
Antonio Cararo Imomo (Conneliano, Italy)
Budovlany (Lodz, Poland)
VakufBank (Istanbul, Turkey)
Volley Alba (Blaž, Romania)
Dynamo (Moscow, Russia)
Evzazzabashi VitrA (Istanbul, Turkey)
Igor Gorgonzola (Novara, Italy)
LS Comerscon (Lodz, Poland)
Lokomotiv (Kaliningrad, Russia)
Lounge Salo (Salo, Finland)
Maritsa (Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
Nantes (Nantes, France)
New KMM Branik (Maribor, Slovenia)
PK Cannes (Cannes, France)
Savino Del Ben (Scandicci, Italy)
Uralocka-NTMC (Ekaterinburg, Russia)
Fenerbahce Opet (Istanbul, Turkey)
Candidates for the other two places in the groups will be filled by the winners in the previous two rounds and will become clear by November 14. These are teams from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro and the Czech Republic.
The group phase will take place between 19 November and 18 February. The 20 participants will be divided into five groups with four teams, with the date of the draw still not announced. The five winners and the three best runners will qualify for the quarterfinals.
