2010–11 LEN Women's Champions' Cup

The 2010–11 LEN Women's Champions' Cup was the 24th edition of the highest-level competition in women's European club water polo. It involved the champions and other top teams from European national leagues and ran from December 2010 to April 2011. The Final Four (semifinals, final, and third place game) took place in Sabadell, Spain.

Final Four host CN Sabadell became the first Spanish team to win the competition beating Orizzonte Catania in the final.[1] Olympiacos CFP and Kinef Kirishi also reached the Final Four, with Olympiacos ranking third, while defending champion Vouliagmeni OC was defeated by Orizzonte in the quarter-finals.

Federation team allocation

Each national federation can enter up to two teams into the Women's Champions' Cup.

• Seeded Federations are the federations who placed a team in the Final Four of the previous' year's competition. In 2009/10, these countries were: Greece (2), Italy, and Russia
• All other federations are unseeded

Federations do not have to enter their top two teams into the Champions' Cup. If they do not think their clubs can be competitive, they can enter teams into the second-tier LEN Cup.

Format and Changes

The original format for the Champions' Cup was to have four phases:

• A qualification round of 4 groups of any size played as a Round-robin tournament at the site of a host team
• A preliminary round of 4 groups of 4 played as a Round-robin tournament at the site of a host team
• A quarterfinal round played as a Two-legged tie
• The Final Four played as a Knockout tournament at a pre-selected site

However, there were only 13 entries, so the qualification round was cancelled, and the preliminary round will be played with 3 groups of 3 and 1 group of 4.

Distribution

	Teams entering in this round	Teams advancing from previous round
Preliminary Round	1 or 2 teams from each federation
Knockout Phase (8 teams)		4 tournament winners from the Preliminary Round 4 tournament runner-up from the Preliminary Round

Teams

There were 13 entries from 7 countries. Each of the draw pots were organised according to the previous year's results:
Bold indicates countries that entered teams

Pot 1	Final Four qualifiers	Greece (2), Italy, Russia
Pot 2	Losing quarterfinalists	Italy, Russia, Spain (2)
Pot 3	3rd placed in preliminary round	Germany, Hungary, Netherlands (2)
Pot 4	4th placed in preliminary round	France, Great Britain (2), Switzerland

Note: The Netherlands only entered one team, so the two available places in Pot 3 were taken by a second German team and a French team elevated from Pot 4.

Draw	Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
Pot 1	Orizzonte Catania	Kinef Kirishi	Olympiacos CFP	Vouliagmeni OC
Pot 2	CN Sabadell	CE Mediterrani	Shturm Ruza	Fiorentina WP
Pot 3	Blau-Weiss Bochum	Bayer Uerdingen	Olympic Nice	Polar Bears Ede
Pot 4				ASPTT Nancy

Round and Draw Dates

Tournament Phase	Draw Date	Tournament
Preliminary Round	6 August 2010	Ends 5 December 2010
Knockout Phase	Draw Date	1st Leg	2nd Leg
Quarterfinals		12–13 February 2011	19–20 March 2011
Final Four	Draw Date	Round Date
Semifinals		22 April 2011
Final		23 April 2011

Tournament Phase

First Qualifying Round

Key to colours in group tables
Progress to the Quarterfinal Round

Group A

	Team	PL	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1.	Sabadell	2	2	0	0	26	20	6
2.	Orizzonte Catania (host)	2	1	0	1	30	25	3
3.	Blau-Weiss Bochum	2	0	0	2	18	29	0

14 January 2011
Sabadell	12–7	Blau-Weiss Bochum
15 January 2011
Sabadell	14–13	Orizzonte Catania
16 January 2011
Orizzonte Catania	17–11	Blau-Weiss Bochum

Group B

	Team	PL	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1.	Kinef Kirishi (host)	2	2	0	0	42	16	6
2.	Bayer Uerdingen	2	1	0	1	30	33	0
3.	Mediterrani	2	0	0	2	17	40	0

14 January 2011
Bayer Uerdingen	20–11	Mediterrani
15 January 2011
Kinef Kirishi	22–10	Bayer Uerdingen
16 January 2011
Kinef Kirishi	20–6	Mediterrani

Group C

	Team	PL	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1.	Olympiacos	2	2	0	0	25	15	6
2.	Shturm Ruza	2	1	0	1	26	19	3
3.	Olympic Nice (host)	2	0	0	2	11	28	0

14 January 2011
Olympiacos	13–4	Olympic Nice
15 January 2011
Olympiacos	12–11	Shturm Ruza
16 January 2011
Shturm Ruza	15–7	Olympic Nice

Group D

	Team	PL	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1.	Vouliagmeni	3	3	0	0	43	17	9
2.	Polar Bears Ede	3	2	0	1	31	30	6
3.	Fiorentina (host)	3	1	0	2	24	28	3
4.	Nancy	3	0	0	3	19	42	0

14 January 2011
Vouliagmeni	15–6	Polar Bears Ede
Fiorentina	11–6	Nancy
15 January 2011
Vouliagmeni	17–6	Nancy
Polar Bears Ede	11–8	Fiorentina
16 January 2011
Vouliagmeni	11–5	Fiorentina
Polar Bears Ede	14–7	Nancy

Quarter-finals

Team #1	Agg.	Team #2	L #1	L #2
Sabadell	22–19	Shturm Ruza	16–8	6–11
Polar Bears Ede	18–26	Kinef Kirishi	9–11	9–15
Vouliagmeni	21–23	Orizzonte Catania	13–11	8–12
Bayer Uerdingen	14–35	Olympiacos	8–18	6–17

Final four

• Piscina Can Llong, Sabadell

	Semi-finals				Final
	22 April
	Sabadell	15
					23 April
	Kinef Kirishi	13
					Sabadell	13
	22 April
					Orizzonte Catania	8
	Orizzonte Catania	14
	Olympiacos	13
					Third place
					23 April
					Kinef Kirishi	12
					Olympiacos	14

2011 LEN Women's Champions' Cup Champions
CN Sabadell First title

References

1. Sabadell becomes the European champion. Marca