Italy back in the final with a dominant performance

Reigning Volleyball Nations League and Olympic champions Italy are closer to winning another major trophy in international volleyball after they advanced to the VNL 2025 gold medal match on Saturday, in Łódź.

The Italians faced hosts Poland and over 10,000 of their loud and passionate home fans at the Atlas Arena in the first semifinal of the tournament, but didn’t hesitate for a minute and produced a dominant performance to win 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 25-15), repeating the score of last year’s encounter in the semifinals and securing another trip to the VNL gold medal match.

• Watch the Volleyball Nations League Finals live on VBTV

Undefeated in their last 28 matches, the Italians will now face the winners of the second semifinal, involving Brazil and Japan and set to start at 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT) on Saturday, in the gold medal match, on Sunday, at 20:00 (18:00 GMT). Earlier, at 16:00 (14:00 GMT), the Polish will meet the losers of that encounter for bronze.

Star opposite Paola Egonu found her best form after a somewhat slow first set and left the court as the match’s top scorer, with 17 points (15 kills, one block, one ace). Outside hitter Alice Degradi also had an excellent performance, registering 13 points, all in kills.

“I thought we played very well in every aspect of the game,” Degradi said. “Our blocking and defense were really good, and that made it hard for them to score points. I felt that our game continued to improve throughout the match. Every match is different, and we don’t think about the past, we only focus on the next one, which is now the gold medal match.”

Team captain Anna Danesi was very productive at the net, ending the match with a match-high five blocks, two more than fellow middle blocker Sarah Fahr.

The Olympic champions were dominant in every area of the game, outscoring the Polish in kills (51 to 30), blocks (11 to six) and aces (three to one). They did, however, make more mistakes than their opponents, giving up 11 points in errors to Poland’s ten.

On the Polish side, team captain and middle blocker Agnieszka Korneluk was the standout, tallying 11 points, with six kills and five blocks. Opposite Malwina Smarzek did well off the bench, contributing nine points (seven kills, one ace, one block).

The home team will now try to repeat what they did in 2023 and 2024 and end the VNL with a bronze medal around their necks, this time in front of their home fans.

“Italy played a great game tonight,” Korneluk reflected. “We need to learn our lessons from this match, and tomorrow is now the most important match in the VNL for us, so we need to focus on it. We’ve won bronze in the last two seasons, and we know how it feels, so we’ll give our best to do it again.”

Volleyball Nations League 2025: full schedule and results

On Sunday, Italy will try to keep their perfect record in VNL gold medal matches. The reigning Olympic champions made it to the decisive match of the tournament in 2022 and 2024 and secured the title on both occasions.

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