Polish volleyballers brought to earth. Brazil silenced the Tauron Arena

It is worth recalling that on Friday, at the opening of the XXII Memorial of Hubert Wagner, the hosts defeated the Serbs in three sets. Bartosz Kurek celebrated his birthday and it was an additional, positive accent of the beautiful event at Tauron Arena in Krakow. However, as it turned out, the day after … Poles lost in three parts.

Poland – Brazil. A clear defeat of the volleyball team in Krakow

The teams are at the last simple preparation before the upcoming world championships, which will take place this year in the Philippines. However, before the team of coach Nikola Grbcia gets on a long journey, defend silver medals from three years ago, after the camp in Zakopane the opportunity to check the form in social matches appeared. The best, as every year, is of course Wagner’s Memorial.

After the aforementioned win on Serbia, the selector of Poles struck strongly in the composition. This time the initial setting was created by: Kewin Sasak on the attack, playing Jan Firlej, a duo of the receiving Artur Szalpuk and Kamil Semeniuk, Middle Jakub Nowak and Jakub Kochanowski and Libero Maksymilian Granczny. So a completely different team than the day before.

Brazilians irritated by Friday’s defeat with Argentina (0: 3), wanted to show a completely different face in Krakow in a clash with the hosts. What to hide here, with tightly filled Tauron Arena stands, it is not difficult to see. And indeed, visitors showed solid volleyball. That day … too good for Poles.

Paradoxically, however, the match began well for the hosts, who in the first set only in the end turned out to be weaker than the Brazilians (23:25). People could, however, be slightly dropped in the second installment (20:25). And in the third, it was close again, although it came mainly from the strong pursuit of volleyball players in the second part of the set. But it was enough until 23:25 – although there was a ball at 24:24. However, Artur Szalpuk failed to hook the triple block, which the video verification indicated.

XXII Memorial of Hubert Wagner. Thousands of fans at Tauron Arena

Looking at the story, the first edition of Hubert Wagner’s memory memorial took place in 2003. At that time, Olsztyn was the city where the volleyball players competed. The tournament hosted in various places in Poland, including Łódź, Bydgoszcz, Zielona Góra, Płock, Katowice and Toruń. But this place where he settled for over a decade is Krakow.

It is worth adding that in 2024 Poles won, ahead of Slovenia and the Germans in the classification. If you look deeper, the hosts have a definite patent to win this social tournament. Poles won 11 times for 21 performances.

In the case of edition 2025, the organizers announced that a set of fans will sit on the Tauron Arena stands in Krakow. And because we are talking about the largest sports and entertainment facility of this type in Poland, nearly fifty thousand fans should be expected, which will appear at the matorial matches.