The Poland men’s national volleyball team secured their third European championship title on Saturday, defeating France 3–1 (31–29, 25–19, 20–25, 25–16) in the tournament final held in Milan, Italy. With the victory, the Polish squad successfully defended the continental crown they won three years prior and automatically qualified for the 2028 Olympic Games tournament in Los Angeles.
Poland Claims Third European Title in Milan Final
Saturday’s championship match at the European Men’s Volleyball Championship featured a tense opening set that extended past the 25-point threshold before Poland clinched a 31–29 win. The opening set was exceptionally close as neither team could build a serious lead for a long time, and the set was extended to a tight finish where the Poles maintained their composure; during the tense conclusion, a successfully challenged referee decision saved Poland from a loss after the umpire failed to notice a French player touching the net, and Bołądź ultimately secured the 31–29 set win after an unsuccessful French appeal regarding the legality of his attack.
Poland maintained control in the second set, utilizing a 7–2 opening run and strong serves from Bartłomiej Lemański and Wilfredo León to build a commanding lead before closing it out 25–19. The French team briefly struggled against their opponents’ formidable front line, and after two excellent serves from Lemański, Poland’s lead grew to 12–4, while León also demonstrated his power on the serve line as the score reached 17–7, leaving France with virtually no chance of recovery before the set concluded. The French team did not give up, and in the third set the Olympic champions improved their attacking performance and took the initiative, winning the set 25–20 and reducing Poland’s lead in the match to 1–2 as they used their block to take an early 7–3 lead and extended it to 11–4 while the Polish players occasionally fell behind in rallies. At the beginning of the fourth set, Poland gained a four-point advantage, but France quickly returned to the match and reduced the gap to a single point before the Poles pulled away again and comfortably won 25–16 after a wave of emotions was raised even higher by another point-scoring serve from Lemański and a teammate block that made it 22–14, followed by a Fornal hit where the ball flew off the block and out of bounds.
Bartłomiej Bołądź led the Polish attack with 16 points. Wilfredo León and Tomasz Fornals each contributed 13 points, with León recording four service aces, while Bartłomiej Lemański added 12 points. For France, Matiss Enno registered a match-high 20 points, and Teo Foram chipped in with 18 points. France, which won Olympic gold in 2024, returned to the European Championship podium for the first time since their 2015 triumph, settling for the silver medal for the fifth time in their history.
Path to the Championship and Tournament Statistics
Poland’s tournament run included a single defeat in the preliminary group stage against Bulgaria after they had already secured the top position in their pool. Across four knockout matches leading to the gold medal, including a straight-sets victory over Latvia in the Round of 16, Poland dropped only a single set. The continental triumph brings Poland’s all-time European Championship medal haul to 12, comprising three golds, five silvers, and four bronzes following previous tournament wins in 2009 and 2023.
Meanwhile, Finland secured its first-ever European Championship medal by defeating Slovenia 3–0 (25–23, 25–20, 29–27) in the bronze-medal match in a clash where the Finnish team had never previously managed to become European championship medalists. Noa Marttila led Finland with 19 points, including four blocks, while his older brother Luka contributed 17 points, and Roks Možičs scored 15 points for Slovenia.
Qualification Implications for the World Championship
The European Championship final tournament featured 24 national teams divided into four groups for a preliminary round-robin stage, from which the four strongest teams in each group advanced to the round of 16. Latvia, which faced Poland in the Round of 16 in Sofia, Bulgaria following a group-stage campaign in Cluj-Napoca, Romania—where the teams also played against Romania, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Turkey—concluded the tournament in 15th place after securing preliminary wins and managing to win a single set against France in the group stage.
