Bulgaria back in a World Championship final after 55 years!

Bulgaria emerged as the first finalist of the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship in the Philippines and secured a podium finish. The last time they were on the podium was in 2006, but the last and the only time they were in the final was back in 1970, when they earned silver on home ground. In Saturday’s semifinal in Pasay City, Bulgaria outlasted a fighting Czechia in four sets, and on Sunday, they will take on the winner of the second semifinal between Poland and Italy, serving off later on Saturday, at 18:30 local time (10:30 UTC).

• Watch the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship on VBTV

Bulgaria broke away a few times in set one, but their abundant serving errors and a fantastic 19-year-old middle blocker Antonin Klimes kept Czechia in the set. Still the southern Europeans pushed on to take it by a five-point margin with middle and captain Aleks Grozdanov nailing the winner. Bulgaria’s 21-year-old outside hitter Aleksandar Nikolov was unstoppable in set two, but this time, with his counterpart Lukas Vasina continuing his excellent performance and opposite Patrik Indra picking up speed, the Czechs took advantage of Bulgaria’s unforced errors to level the score. Vasina closed the set with a powerful block-out shot. Bulgaria continued to take a lot of risk from the serving line and while that did not pay off as much as they would have liked, Aleks Nikolov continued to swing successfully from all sorts of angles and the blockers put in a great effort to lead the team to the set win, with Nikolov closing it with a kill block. The lead changed hands several times in set four, but after 16-16, the Bulgarians got a mini break and no longer let go of their advantage. The winning point came as a serving error by Czechia and got the Bulgarian party started celebrating a 3-1 (25-20, 23-25, 25-21, 25-22) victory.

All three scoring elements worked better for the Bulgarians – 56-49 in spike kills, 12-7 in kill blocks and 8-4 in serving aces. Aleks Nikolov made his best scoring performance so far in the tournament, contributing as many as 31 points towards the victory. He fired three aces, raised one kill block and spiked at a 57% success rate to lead his team to success. Aleks Grozdanov impressed with an 88% success rate in attack and put away four kill blocks and an ace to finish with 12 points. Opposite Asparuh Asparuhov added another 10, one more than 18-year-old setter Simeon Nikolov, who produced two aces, two blocks and five successful swings.

“Incredible! I am lost for words… We are medalists of this World Championship and I can’t believe it! Tomorrow we are just going to try to color the medal in gold. But we have a medal, so we are happy,” an elated Aleks Nikolov told VBTV. “It definitely felt like a really good game. I owed it to the guys after the bad start against the US. They pulled me out in that game and we managed to win a great quarterfinal. I had to repay them by playing this game like I did, so I am happy that I could.”

Czechia put up a solid fight throughout the match and did their best to capitalize on the 28 unforced errors their opponents made. They committed six fewer themselves. Vasina was their best scorer with 17 points, spiking at a 54% success rate and adding two blocks and an ace to his tally. His cross-court teammate Jan Galabov added 13 points, while Indra finished with 10.

“We have given everything that we got. We fought and we fought, but Bulgaria was better. Tactically, they were much better than us and that’s all. Congratulations to them! Well deserved! Tomorrow is another day, another fight, another war… and we want a medal,” said Czechia’s middle and captain Adam Zajicek.

2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship: full schedule and results

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