The Poles won the losing set! The key moment of the European Volleyball Championship final
The Polish and French national volleyball players put on a great show for the opening of the European Championship 2026 final. After a dramatic ending, the Poles won 31:29.
What happened in the first installment is difficult to describe in words. Both the European champions (2023) and the Olympic champions (2024) showed really great volleyball. Initially, the Poles had a point advantage, which they tried to carry until the very end of the set. However, the Tricolor team increased the pace and took the lead again at 18:17.
What’s more, France even had four set points. In one of them, the referee even ended the game. However, it turned out that the Polish staff asked for video verification. It turned out that after Bartłomiej Lemański’s attack, the ball actually went into the outfield, but before that, one of the Frenchmen touched the net in the block. And the whole thing was spotted by Marcin Nowakowski, a member of Nikola Grbic’s team.
Crazy opening set of the European Championship 2026 finals! The Poles pulled out this part
There was consternation in the stands on the one hand, and great joy on the other. The Milan hall once again began to enjoy the fact that it could admire both teams in action, still in the opening set of the final. The Poles finally turned the tables on this game, winning 31:29.
This moment and what happened thanks to the video verification in favor of the Poles will undoubtedly go down in the history of the final competition for the European volleyball championship.
Polish national team at the European Championships. A bag of volleyball players’ medals!
The Polish national volleyball team has won gold medals in the European Championships twice in its history. Poles won in 2009 and 2023. Historically, Poland won its first title in Turkey, and Piotr Gruszka was honored with the MVP award.
The last tournament, the 33rd edition in the history of the Men’s Volleyball Championship, was held in four countries: North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Israel and Italy. Ultimately, in the final battle in Rome, the Poles defeated the Italians 3-0. The MVP award went to Wilfredo Leon.
Looking at the entire history of the Men’s Volleyball Championships, Poland won a total of 11 medals. This is the third best result in terms of the number of Old Continent championship medals won by Polish representatives. There are two gold medals (2009, 2023), and five silver medals in a row (1975, 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983). What is even more interesting, at that time only the USSR volleyball players won the championship titles. In the years 1967-91, the Soviet Union national team won 10 titles out of 11 editions of the European Championship.
Poland won four bronze medals at the European Championships, in the editions of 1967 (the first medal for volleyball players in the history of the European Championships) and more recently – 2011, 2019 and 2021.
