U19 European Championship 2015: Congratulations Poland for Winning the Gold Medal!

Poland’s Volleyball family continues to march from triumph to triumph and their future perspectives look extremely bright, even more after their men’s U19 national team claimed gold at their age-group European Championship as the competition came to a close on Sunday evening in Sakarya. Poland edged Italy by 3:1 (25-15, 25-13, 25-27, 25-21) in a remake of the match these teams had contested in Pool I at the very beginning of the tournament. 

This is Poland’s second title in the competition following their gold medal performance from the 2005 edition. Poland have so far claimed eight medals in this competition, with gold in 2005 and 2015, silver in 2001, 2003, 2007 and 2013 and bronze in 1995 and 1997. Italy were also vying for their second title after topping the charts in 1997 but had to be content with silver. The hosts of Turkey finished their home campaign with a 3:1 win (25-19, 25-19, 22-25, 25-18) over Germany in the bronze medal match to secure the first podium finish for their country since the U19 men’s European Championship was established back in 1995. 

The top six teams from the competition – Poland, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Russia and Bulgaria – have all qualified to this year’s FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship in Argentina with the Czech Republic claiming the last ticket to this year’s European Youth Olympic Festival after winning the seventh-place final with Serbia. 

Final | Poland vs. Italy 3:1 (25-15, 25-13, 25-27, 25-21)

The expected clash of the giants was rather a fight between David and Goliath in the first and second sets. It doesn’t matter which figures were taken into account, Poland was absolutely playing at a much higher level than Italy. Against this Italy almost collapsed and lost both sets in an unexpected clear way by 25-15 and 25-13. 
In the third set Poland took an early lead at 6-3 but Italy scored a 3-0 run to level the game at 6-6 with Roberto Cominetti’s spikes and serves. After 6-6, Poland took the initiative again and reached the first technical timeout leading by 8-6. Tomasz Fornal’s serves caused problems to Italy’s defence and the Polish team took a four-point advantage at 10-6. Italy made it 15-15 with some strong blocks but Poland got up again by 16-15 at the second technical timeout. A block and an ace brought up the next three-point advantage for Poland (19-16). The fight that experts and spectators had expected started only in the crunch time of the third set. At 24-22 Italy was going for two set balls but they even missed out on a third opportunity for the 2:1 and Poland’s Tomasz Fornal had the chance to get a match ball for his team. However, a huge Italian block changed the momentum again and brought Italy back on the winning streak at 27-25. Especially Matteo Maiocchi had stepped up beyond recognition scoring 11 points in set 3 after recording just two points in the first two periods. 
In the fourth set Italy was able to stretch momentum and blew out the Polish defence with some nice attacks by Matteo Maiocchi for the provisional 5-1. Poland tried everything to level the score but their attackers were regularly stopped by the Italian blocks so the Azzurrini moved the charts first to 19-15 and then to 21-18. Two attack faults and great serves troubled Italy and turned the score around at 24-22 for the boys in red and white shirts. Finally Poland’s Jakub Ziobrowski made the last point to crown with gold a fantastic #EuroVolleyU19M campaign for his team. 

Sebastian Pawlik, coach of Poland: “I feel great. Congrats to my players as they had an amazing European Championship and played really good. Today our good serve made the difference especially in the first and second sets. I didn’t expect a game like this but Italy showed their great class after that and gave us a very hard fight. To win this European Championship is a great success for Volleyball in Poland. I think many people were watching us.”

Jakub Kochanowski, captain of Poland: “I don’t know what to say and find no words for it. I’m so happy that we won the European Championship without losing a game, it is an incredible feeling. Italy played good and with an extremely high block but we found an answer and won the game. For now I can’t really understand what happened; it’s so unreal, yet amazing.”

Mario Barbiero, coach of Italy: “I am happy with our general performance but for today I am angry because the game was in our hands in the fourth set. Poland is a strong team. They won with two or three strong balls in the end. The World Championship will be very competitive because Brazil, Argentina and Iran will all be there. I believe we will have a good tournament in Argentina too.”

Gianluca Galassi, captain of Italy: “Today we did not perform our best. We should have been more aggressive. We did not believe in our chances. It is our fault that they won the first two sets. We should have forced them to a tie break. The victory was within our possibilities but we could not make it happen. After all, we had a good European Championship. This was a special tournament and opportunity to grow for our team. The future stars of European Volleyball participated in this Championship. I thank all of my teammates.”

Individual Awards 

MVP: Bartosz Kwolek (Poland) 
Best Scorer: Maximilian Auste (Germany)
Best Blocker: Aleksei Kononov (Russia)  
Best Receiver: Burak Cevik (Turkey) 
Best Spiker: Abdullah Cam (Turkey) 
Best Server: Matej Smidl (Czech Republic)  
Best Setter: Kamil Droszynski (Poland) 
Best Libero: Alessandro Piccinelli (Italy) 

Final standing 
1.    Poland 
2.    Italy 
3.    Turkey 
4.    Germany 
5.    Russia 
6.    Bulgaria 
7.    Czech Republic 
8.    Serbia 
9.    France 
10.   Spain 
11.   Denmark 
12.   Romania

#BartoszKwolek