Antoine Brizard and coach Tuomas Sammelvuo join Osaka Bluteon

France’s setting magician and two-time Olympic champion Antoine Brizard has signed with Osaka Bluteon for the upcoming season in the men’s Daido Life SV.League in Japan as well as the team’s participation in the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship. The French star will play along with the likes of high-flying Japanese opposite Yuji Nishida and Cuban standout Miguel Lopez, under the guidance of the team’s new head coach Tuomas Sammelvuo from Finland, who has also recently signed with the club from Osaka.

31-year-old French international Brizard is arriving from Italy’s Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza, where he spent the last four seasons of his club career and won the Italy Cup trophy in 2023. Before that, he played for clubs from France, Poland and Russia, celebrating a number of continental and domestic podiums, including Europe’s CEV Cup trophy with Paris Volley. The playmaker has been on an impressive run with the French national team, winning two consecutive Olympic titles in Tokyo and in Paris, in addition to two Volleyball Nations League crowns in 2022 and in 2024, and a FIVB Volleyball World League gold in 2017. His Paris 2024 Dream Team nomination and VNL 2024 Most Valuable Player and Dream Team honors are the most impressive among a number of individual awards Brizard has collected over the years.

49-year-old Finnish coach Tuomas Sammelvuo has taken over Osaka Bluteon from Frenchman Laurent Tillie, who led the team to an SV.League bronze last season, as well as to a 2025 AVC Men’s Champions League silver, which came with a ticket to this year’s FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship. Before arriving in Japan, Sammelvuo coached Poland’s Asseco Resovia Rzeszow and Grupa Azoty ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle, and Russia’s Zenit Saint Petersburg and Kuzbass Kemerovo, in addition to the national teams of Finland, Russia and Canada. Among the former Finnish international outside hitter’s most notable coaching achievements are the Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver and the VNL 2019 gold with Russia, and the 2023 CEV Champions League crown with ZAKSA. Sammelvuo also won the Champions League as a player, in 2005 with France’s Tours, as well as the CEV Cup (as the CEV Challenge Cup was called back then), in 2002 with Italy’s Noicom Cuneo. He spent a season in Japan as a player of Toyoda Gosei Trefuerza.

• Watch the SV.League on VBTV

Quick links:
Japanese SV.League - men
VBTV
Volleyball World Facebook
Volleyball World X
Volleyball World Instagram
Volleyball World YouTube
Subscribe to Volleyball World's Newsletter