Year in Review: Imoco reclaim club world title without losing a set

In the most convincing of ways, without dropping a single set throughout the tournament, Italy’s Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano picked up their third FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship title at December’s 2024 edition in Hangzhou, China. The Panthers also triumphed in 2019 and in 2022. In 2021, they settled for silver.

Imoco’s Swedish star opposite Isabelle Haak was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the competition. The 25-year-old 1.96m-tall striker claimed the Club World Championship’s highest individual recognition for the third time in her career, after doing so in 2022 as an Imoco player and in 2021 as a VakifBank Istanbul athlete as well.

In their pool, the squad from Conegliano produced straight-set wins over Brazil’s Dentil Praia Clube Uberlandia, over Vietnam’s LP Bank Ninh Binh and over Japan’s NEC Red Rockets Kawasaki. Then they swept their semifinal against Italian compatriots Numia Vero Volley Milan by 3-0 (25-23, 25-14, 25-23).

In front of packed stands of well over six thousand fans at the Huanglong Sports Center in Hangzhou on December 22, Imoco showed no mercy for China’s Tianjin Bohai Bank in the gold medal showdown and hammered out a 3-0 (25-21, 25-15, 25-20) shutout of the Club World Championship hosts. The incredible Haak was on fire throughout the game and scored a fantastic match high of 25 points over the three sets of the match.

On the way to the final, Tianjin lost only a set, in their 3-1 (25-23, 25-21, 24-26, 25-22) semifinal against Dentil Praia. Before that, in pool play, they shut out Egypt’s Zamalek Giza, Italy’s Vero Volley and Gerdau Minas Belo Horizonte. The silver medal was the best result any Chinese club has ever managed to achieve at the Club World Championships. The club’s previous best result was the 2023 bronze.

Club World Championship rookies Numia Vero Volley Milan completed the podium, claiming the bronze. They made sure they decorated their Club World Championship debut with a medal by putting together an emphatic 3-0 (25-23, 25-16, 25-13) sweep of the third place match against Dentil Praia, leaving their opponents off the podium again. It was Dentil Praia’s second consecutive and third overall fourth-place finish in the history of the competition.

In addition to earning the MVP honour, Isabelle Haak led a line-up of seven outstanding players who were honoured on the Hangzhou 2024 Dream Team:

Setter: Joanna Wolosz (Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano)
Opposite: Isabelle Haak (Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano)
Outside hitters: Li Yingying (Tianjin Bohai Bank) and Zhu Ting (Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano)
Middle blockers: Hena Kurtagic (Numia Vero Volley Milan) and Sarah Fahr (Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano)
Libero: Liu Liwen (Tianjin Bohai Bank)

Haak was Imoco’s leading scorer at the Club World Championship and overall third best scorer of the tournament with 68 points (52 spikes, 9 kill blocks, 7 aces) over the four matches she took part in. Above her in that chart were Li Yingying with 104 points and Vero Volley’s Paola Egonu with 89. Haak was also the third best server and the fourth best attacker of the competition.

2024 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship: all results

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