Osaka take Japan to the Club World Championship final

Osaka Bluteon made history on Saturday at the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men's Club World Championship in Belém and are set to become the first Japanese team to play in the tournament's final.

The Asian Club Championship runners-up put on a dominant performance at the Mangueirinho Arena on Saturday and took down Poland's Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie with a remarkable 3-0 (25-17, 25-23, 25-19) victory in the first semifinal of the event held in Brazil.

• Watch the FIVB Volleyball Men's Club World Championship on VBTV

The Asians now wait for the conclusion of the second semifinal, which reunites Italy's Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia and Brazil's Vôlei Renata Campinas at 18:30 local time (21:30 UTC), to know their opponents in the final match of the tournament, which will be held on Sunday at the same time. Warta Zawiercie will play the losers at 15:00 (18:00 UTC) for bronze.

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Competing in the Club World Championship for just the second time (they were fifth in 2013), Osaka will now try to give Japan its first-ever title in the tournament. The country has only one medal won at the world level so far, the bronze earned by their crosstown rivals, Suntory Sunbirds Osaka, in 2023.

Osaka's captain and Japanese national team star opposite Yuji Nishida was the team's main weapon in the semifinal against the Polish, producing 13 points, all in kills. A club world champion with Brazil's Sada Cruzeiro in 2021, when he earned the tournament's MVP award, Cuban outside hitter Miguel Ángel López also left the court with 13 points, registering 11 kills and two aces.

Warta Zawiercie got 11 points (all in kills) from outside hitter Bartosz Kwolek and another ten (all in kills, too) from opposite Bartlomiej Boladz.

Out of the final, they will now try to take Poland back to the Club World Championship podium for the first time since 2012, when PGE Skra Belchatow won bronze.

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