Poland triumph in VNL after emphatic blowout of Italy

Poland triumphed as the men’s Volleyball Nations League 2025 champions after an emphatic sweep of Sunday’s final against Italy in Ningbo. It was the second VNL gold for Poland, after 2023, and sixth consecutive podium. With this result, Poland completed a perfect run through the Finals in China, without a set dropped in three matches played. Italy, on the other hand, took silver, their first-ever hardware in the history of the men’s VNL.

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The first set of the final was the most competitive of the three, but Poland stayed in control for the most part of it until outside hitter Kamil Semeniuk hammered the 25-22 set winner. An incorrectly entered rotation line-up created a lot of problems for Italy in the second set and cost them a convincing 25-19 defeat.

Of course, the error was fixed for the start of the third set, but that did not help much to put Italy back on track. On the contrary, the set was completely one-sided as the Polish team was on fire and cruised through to an emphatic 3-0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-14) blowout, with middle blocker Szymon Jakubiszak delivering the match winner with a blistering first-tempo kill.

Poland outperformed Italy in three of the four scoring elements: 37-27 in spike kills, 18-25 in unforced errors and 10-6 in kill blocks. The reigning world champions outplayed the world’s number one team in serving by 4-3 in aces.

Poland’s Cuban-born star outside hitter Wilfredo Leon proved an excellent replacement for injured Tomasz Fornal in this match. Leon was the best scorer of the gold medal showdown with 16 points to his name, including a kill block. His cross-court teammate Kamil Semeniuk added another 14, including a block and an ace, while middle blocker and captain Jakub Kochanowski shined with a 71% success rate in attack and two kill blocks towards a total of seven points. Outside Daniele Lavia was the only Italian player to reach the double digits with 11 points. His tally featured two blocks and an ace.

“This means a lot! I know that they were waiting for my comeback to play at a high level, so I tried to do my best. I told them, ‘I will not leave you alone, guys! Fornal got injured, but I will be there!’ I did my best! So, we got the gold medal and I am really happy and proud!” Wilfredo Leon told VBTV after the awarding ceremony. “We have so many stars, but we try to be together as much as possible. We understand each other, we support each other, and this is the key to our success. Also, I want to thank my family! They give me a lot of support. At the World Championship, I expect to have more games like today and another trophy. Continue watching our games and support Poland!”

“I am really proud! We had so many injuries from the start of the preparation. We had an important one now. We lost a very important player at a very crucial moment. So, I think we will have to go to church to pray for these injuries to be over,” Poland’s Serbian coach Nikola Grbic commented. “The second thing is that many players played for the first time. So, I can just be proud of these guys – how much they put up with: with me, with my demands, with how I pushed them to be better… I know it’s not easy, because if it were easy, everybody would do it. And now we have to do it all over again. We reset and start preparations for the World Championship next Monday. This can be very dangerous, because now, if you are not careful, you may think that you are amazing and that you don’t need to push yourself any further. So, now we have to go back to the gym and push ourselves…”

Volleyball Nations League 2025: all results

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