Wilfredo Leon talks very honestly about life in Poland. “I’m shocked though.”
Next to Bartosz Kurek and Tomasz Fornal, Wilfredo Leon is the biggest star of PlusLiga. After moving to Poland, the volleyball player shared his observations.
For Wilfredo Leon, the 2024/25 season is the first one he will spend on PlusLiga pitches. So far, the famous player has been associated with foreign leagues, in recent years playing on the Apennine Peninsula.
Wilfredo Leon opens up about the realities after moving to Poland
After the Olympic Games in Paris, Leon decided to try his hand at the league, which is full of teammates. Although the volleyball player has already seen a lot in his career, he does not deny that PlusLiga and the Polish realities surprised him greatly.
– When I signed the contract with Bogdanka LUK Lublin, I was convinced that there would be a full audience at each home match. This is true and it is not a particular surprise to me. However, I am shocked by the atmosphere at other venues, because I never thought that our matches would arouse so much emotion. You can see that Poles are incredibly in love with volleyball, and I also feel the love of the fans (…) In Poland, the fans have already broken all records related to me. In Italy, it was felt that football was the number one sport, and in Poland, volleyball had a unique status – admitted the player of Bogdanka LUK and the national team to WP/SportoweFakty.
Let us add that together with the national team, Leon won the Olympic vice-championship. The receiver was one of the most important figures in coach Nikola Grbic’s squad.
PlusLiga: Huge push in the fight for the league podium, Jastrzębski Węgiel is the leader
Most of the teams have already played 12 rounds of the 2024/25 season. There is a lot of pressure in the PlusLiga table, and most experts already at this stage assess the current campaign as the most interesting in years, or even in the entire history.
– This season, the structure of the PlusLiga table is changing very quickly. It’s tight, it’s difficult to get higher, and it’s easy to catch a bad series and start looking nervously behind your back. This also shows what the level of the competition is. We are getting closer to a situation where more and more teams start to play for the play-offs. Completely different than years ago, when before the season you could bet on who would be in the top four or six at the end of the league – said Bartłomiej Lemański, PGE GiEK Skra Bełchatów’s center, former Polish representative, especially for Wprost.pl.
The top three places are occupied by teams that have the same balance of matches won and lost. The point difference is only due to the number of points, taking into account, among others, five-set matches played. Jastrzębski Węgiel (31 points), PGE Projekt Warszawa (28) and Bogdanka LUK Lublin (28), i.e. Leon’s team, have ten wins and two losses each.