Poland and France claim tiebreak wins to vie for #EuroVolleyU18M title

Poland and France will contest on Saturday the #EuroVolleyU18M gold medal match after they emerged victorious from two tiebreaks in their respective semis with Bulgaria and hosts Italy. Saturday’s programme will also feature the bronze medal game between Italy and Bulgaria. 

After dominating Pool I with a record of seven wins in as many matches, Poland had to come from behind twice in their semi-final with Bulgaria where they pulled off a 3-2 victory (19-25, 25-19, 33-35, 25-17, 15-10), thus extending their winning streak even further and remaining the only undefeated team in the competition. Adam Potempa top scored for Poland with a personal tally of 29 points, including as many as nine blocks! 

In the second semi-final, a repeat of the gold medal match from the 2024 edition, the young Azzurrini coached by Vincenzo Fanizza eventually lost to Pool II winners France 2-3 (25-20, 14-25, 21-25, 25-23, 12-15). After winning the first set and coming back from 1-2 down, Italy did well to hold on and push the match into a tie-break, where the French eventually secured a hard-fought victory. The match’s top scorer was French captain Matteo Mrozek with 23 points. The top scorer for Italy was Nicola Massari with 18. 

Iacopo Illini, outside hitter of Italy, commented at the end of the semi-final: “We played great Volleyball against some very strong opponents who, like us, never gave up. Now we have to focus on tomorrow, on the bronze medal match, and as we always say: the most important match is the one to come. A medal would be an added bonus for this group.”

The bronze medal game will begin at 5 pm CEST and will be followed by the grand finale at 7:30 pm, with both fixtures streamed live on the CEV YouTube channel.