If you wish to publish an Italian translation of this article, any of our other articles, or ANY PART OF THEM, please cite the original source. PLAGIARISM IS ILLEGAL!
Finland and Slovenia will meet today at 17:00 with a European bronze medal at stake, in a match that brings together two teams whose EuroVolley histories have taken very different paths.
Finland have never won a medal in their 20 previous appearances, while Slovenia have finished on the podium in four of the last five editions and are now playing their second bronze-medal match after 2023.
This will be the fifth EuroVolley meeting between the two sides, with the head-to-head perfectly balanced at two wins apiece.
Finland won the first two encounters, beating Slovenia 3-2 in the 2011 Play Off round and 3-1 in the 2013 pool phase, with current Finnish head coach Olli Kunnari featuring as a player in both matches.
Slovenia, on the other hand, have won the last two meetings, 3-1 in the 2019 pool phase and 3-0 in 2023, when Rok Mozic scored 17 points for the winners and Jiri Hänninen finished with 15 for Finland.
Slovenia have also won the last five competitive encounters between the teams across EuroVolley, Olympic qualifying and the World League. Their most recent meeting came in Tokyo in October 2023, when Slovenia won 3-1 in Olympic qualifying behind 18 points from Klemen Cebulj and 16 from Mozic, while Joonas Jokela scored 14 for Finland.
For Finland, however, this match represents something much bigger than another chapter in the head-to-head.
A victory would finally bring the country its first EuroVolley medal after 20 previous campaigns, the longest wait for a medal in the history of the men’s and women’s European Championships. Their best result remains fourth place in 2007, when Finland reached the semifinals before losing 3-2 to Spain and then fell 3-1 to Serbia in the bronze-medal match. Kunnari was part of that Finnish team as a player.
Since then, Finland’s best EuroVolley results have been quarterfinal appearances in 2011 and 2013, followed by Play Off-round finishes in 2015 and 2017 and Last 16 appearances in 2019 and 2021.
Their 2026 campaign has already rewritten much of that history.
Finland have won six matches at a single EuroVolley for the first time, while four of their five five-set matches have ended in victory.
Only the Netherlands, with seven tie-breaks in 1958, have played more five-setters at a single edition. Joonas Jokela leads Finland’s scoring chart with 145 points, while Luka Marttila has 140, with both players comfortably surpassing Urpo Sivula’s 93 points from 2021 as the highest totals by a Finnish player at a single EuroVolley since 2011. Marttila has also served 19 aces, the most by a Finnish player at a EuroVolley since 2011 and second overall at this tournament only to Ukraine’s Oleh Plotnytskyi, who has 20. Miika Haapaniemi has added another landmark with 20 kill blocks, making him the first Finnish player since 2011 to reach that figure at a EuroVolley.
Finland’s wider 2026 season has been equally remarkable.
They have won 16 of their 18 competitive matches, with their only defeats coming against Estonia in a five-set EuroVolley pool match and France in the semifinal, 3-1. That is a striking contrast with the 12 competitive victories they collected across the whole of 2024 and 2025 combined. Earlier this year, Finland won the European League, defeating the Netherlands 3-1 both at home and away in the final. They won all ten of their matches in three or four sets, with Marttila finishing as the competition’s third-highest scorer with 167 points and Haapaniemi leading all players in kill blocks with 23. The European League title also secured Finland’s place at EuroVolley 2028.
There is, however, another piece of history within reach.
No European League or Golden League winner has ever gone on to win EuroVolley in the same year.
The best results achieved by a European or Golden League champion at the subsequent EuroVolley have been silver medals for Russia in 2005 and Slovenia in 2015. Finland also won the 2025 European Golden League under Kunnari, beating Czechia 3-1 in Brno, with Marttila scoring 23 points in the final and finishing that edition as Finland’s leading scorer with 128 points.
The Finns also arrive with the experience of a Last 16 appearance at the 2025 World Championship, where they lost 0-3 to Belgium after a group stage that included a 2-3 defeat to Argentina despite leading 2-0, a 3-2 victory over France and a 3-1 win against the Republic of Korea. Marttila was the third-ranked receiver of that World Championship, recording 37 successful receptions at 35.24%. For Kunnari, meanwhile, today’s match brings together two different chapters of his international career: before becoming head coach, he represented Finland at five EuroVolley editions between 2007 and 2015.
Slovenia arrive with a very different relationship with the bronze medal.
They have already stood on the EuroVolley podium four times in the last five editions, taking silver in 2015, 2019 and 2021 before winning bronze in 2023. They remain the only team to have collected four podium finishes since the start of the 2015 tournament, while Slovenia and Poland are the only teams to have appeared on the podium at each of the last three editions. Slovenia are now playing their second EuroVolley bronze-medal match: in 2023, they defeated France 3-2 to claim third place.
Five Slovenian players — Alen Pajenk, Tine Urnaut, Jan Kozamernik, Klemen Cebulj and Jani Kovacic — can also reach a personal milestone today by winning a fifth EuroVolley medal.
Each currently has three silver and one bronze.
Only seven players in the history of the competition have collected six medals, so another podium finish would place several members of this Slovenian generation among the most decorated players of the tournament.
Nik Mujanovic leads Slovenia’s scoring at this EuroVolley with 139 points. Mozic was the team’s leading scorer in 2023 with 152, including 132 spikes, while Cebulj finished that tournament with 129. Mujanovic had already made his mark in the 2026 VNL, where he was Slovenia’s top scorer with 277 points, just one behind overall leader Aleksandar Nikolov of Bulgaria. Jan Kozamernik has also produced a remarkable blocking campaign, with 26 kill blocks — the highest single-EuroVolley total by a Slovenian player since 2011. Only Poland’s Piotr Nowakowski in 2021, Russia’s Dmitriy Muserskiy in 2013 and Italy’s Luigi Mastrangelo in 2011 have recorded more in that period.
Today’s match is also another chapter in Slovenia’s long run on Italian courts. It will be their 11th consecutive EuroVolley match in Italy since 2023, with six victories and four defeats so far. Overall, this is Slovenia’s 11th EuroVolley campaign, following their debut in 2001 and appearances at every edition from 2007 through 2026.
The bronze-medal match also carries particular significance because of Slovenia’s recent relationship with third-place games.
Since 2021, they have played seven bronze-medal matches across major competitions, including today’s encounter. They lost to France at the 2021 VNL, Brazil at the 2022 World Championship, beat France 3-2 at EuroVolley 2023, lost to Poland at the 2024 VNL and Brazil at the 2025 VNL, before finally winning their first VNL bronze against Japan in 2026. Today they have another opportunity to finish a major tournament on the podium.
Slovenia’s recent international record gives them plenty of experience at this stage, but Finland’s remarkable 2026 campaign has created an entirely different challenge.
The Finns are one victory away from transforming the best EuroVolley result in their history into their first medal, while Slovenia are trying to maintain one of the most consistent podium records of the modern era.
At 17:00, the two stories meet in the bronze-medal match: Finland searching for a first European medal, Slovenia fighting for another chapter in a golden generation’s extraordinary run!
Saturday Semptember 26, 2026
📍Unipol Forum Assago
🥉| BRONZE MEDAL MATCH | 17.00 (Local Time) | Finland – Slovenia
📍Unipol Forum Assago
🥇| GOLD MEDAL MATCH | 21.00 (Local Time) | France – Poland
___________
👀|QUICK LINKS
• EuroVolley 2026 – Calendar
• EuroVolley 2026 – All News
• All International news 🗞️
• Multimedia
• Facebook
• Instagram
__________________