Great news for Polish volleyball players. The team is at the very top!
The Polish national volleyball team strengthened its lead in the FIVB ranking. Much of this is thanks to the Italians. The world champions lost the match against Ukraine 0:3
The rules of the world ranking in national volleyball are clear. In fact, every match is important because it costs a certain number, either positive or negative. Although the Poles lost the lead in the classification after a long time, in the last few dozen hours they regained the title of the highest-ranking team in the world.
The current champions, the Italians, were again runners-up. However, Italy made a mockery of the matter, losing in the last two Nations League matches – first to Bulgaria (2:3), and then to Ukraine (0:3). Especially the hard clash with coach Raul Lozano’s team was a big surprise. The Italians lost in sets to 23, 19 and 16.
The world champions suffered such a defeat during the VNL tournament in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The Polish team increases its advantage! Volleyball players top the FIVB rankings
At the same time, Poles started the Nations League competition in Gliwice. In the PreZero Arena, the hosts defeated the Belgians after a tie-break in Wednesday’s (June 24) thriller. Thanks to this, the Poles gained… 0.01 points to their achievements. The most important thing, however, was that the Belgians did not snatch ranking points from the 2023 European champions.
This is exactly what happened to the Italians, who lost -11.32 and -16.89 points, respectively, for their defeats against Bulgaria and Ukraine. Thus, Poles have an advantage over Italy of exactly 2.04 points. As you can see, we are talking about minimal values in favor of coach Nikola Grbic’s team.
The situation in the VNL 2026 competition itself is also very interesting. The Italians have the same number of victories as the Poles (three), but they have played one more match. However, the mentioned Ukrainians have four wins. The leaders with five wins are the Japanese, who won the direct clash with Poland 3:2.
It is worth adding that Poland played as many as four tie-breaks in the first five matches. Wins against Belgium, Ukraine and losses against Japan and Slovenia. In addition, there is the triumph in the opening match against the Cubans, in three sets.
