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France and Poland meet tonight at 21:00 in Milano with the European title at stake, in a final that brings together the reigning Olympic champions and the defending European champions.
It is also a meeting between two teams whose recent history has been deeply intertwined, from the EuroVolley final of 2009 to the Olympic final in Paris in 2024!
It will be the 14th EuroVolley encounter between France and Poland and only the second time they have met in the Gold Medal match.
The first was in Izmir in 2009, when Poland defeated France 3-1 to claim the first European title in their history, after having also beaten Les Bleus 3-1 in the first Pool Phase of that tournament. Overall, Poland have won 10 of the 13 previous EuroVolley meetings, including an awarded victory in the 1983 pool phase. France’s three wins came in 1985, 1989 and 2013. The most recent European meeting was the 2019 bronze-medal match in Paris, where Poland won 3-0, with Wilfredo Leon and Earvin Ngapeth both scoring 18 points.
Two years before that European rematch, however, France and Poland met on the biggest stage of all.
In the 2024 Olympic final in Paris, France won 3-0 to retain the Olympic title, with Jean Patry scoring 17 points. Bartosz Kurek led Poland with 10, followed by Leon and Jakub Kochanowski on nine each. France had claimed their first Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021, and their second in Paris, while Poland took silver.
Tonight’s final therefore carries another historical distinction.
It is only the third EuroVolley Gold Medal match in which the reigning Olympic champions have faced the defending European champions.
The previous two were in 1977, when Olympic champions Poland lost 1-3 to defending European champions Soviet Union, and in 2001, when Olympic champions Yugoslavia defeated defending European champions Italy 3-0.
Poland’s own record against reigning Olympic champions at EuroVolley stands at five defeats followed by one victory: their most recent meetings were against Yugoslavia in 2001, when they lost 0-3, and Serbia & Montenegro in 2003, when they won 3-2.
Nikola Grbić was a player for Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro in those two matches!
The recent competitive rivalry is much more balanced.
Poland have won four of the last six competitive meetings with France, including a 3-1 victory in the 2026 VNL league phase, when Bartłomiej Bołądź scored 18 points and Stephen Boyer 14 for France. Poland also won a 3-1 friendly at the Hubert Wagner Memorial on 30 August. France, however, have won the last three competitive knockout encounters: 3-2 in the 2021 Olympic quarterfinals, 3-2 in the 2025 VNL semifinals and 3-0 in the 2024 Olympic final. Poland’s last knockout victory came in that 2019 EuroVolley bronze-medal match.
The final also puts two of the most decorated figures in modern European volleyball on opposite sides of the court.
As coaches, Andrea Giani and Nikola Grbić have met once at EuroVolley, with Giani winning 3-2 as Germany coach against Grbić’s Serbia in the 2017 semifinal after coming back from two sets down.
Their careers had already crossed as players, and both belong to the exclusive group of seven players who have won six EuroVolley medals.
Giani’s record is four gold, one silver and one bronze; Grbić’s is one gold, one silver and four bronze.
They both won medals at the 1995, 1997 and 1999 editions, although they never faced each other in a medal match in those tournaments.
Giani was not part of Italy’s squad in 2001, when Grbić won gold with Yugoslavia against Italy in the final.
For France, tonight’s match is their fifth EuroVolley final.
Their previous appearances came in 1987, when they lost 1-3 to Soviet Union, 2003, when Italy beat them 3-2, 2009 against Poland, and 2015, when France finally won the title with a 3-0 victory over Slovenia. Only Italy, with 12 finals, and Russia including the Soviet Union, with eight, have reached the Gold Medal match more often.
France have collected seven EuroVolley medals in total — one gold, four silver and two bronze — but their last medal remains that 2015 title.
In 2019 and 2023 they reached the Final Four but lost both the semifinal and bronze-medal match. Their European record is particularly notable when compared with their Olympic achievements: France have won two Olympic gold medals but only one European title. They have also never won EuroVolley while reigning Olympic champions.
A victory tonight would change that and would have another extraordinary consequence.
France would qualify for the 2028 Olympic Games for the seventh time, having won the last two Olympic tournaments in Tokyo and Paris. No men’s team has ever won Olympic gold three times in succession; Cuba achieved that feat in the women’s tournament in 1992, 1996 and 2000.
France are also about to play their 223rd EuroVolley match, moving further ahead of Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria, all on 221, and behind only Italy’s 235. Their record currently stands at 124 wins and 98 defeats. Only the Netherlands have lost more EuroVolley matches than France, with 106. In Italy, France have a 13-6 record.
The numbers also underline the unusual character of France’s relationship with decisive matches.
They have lost four of their last five EuroVolley matches that went to a fifth set, including their last three tie-breaks. That contrasts sharply with their 2015 title run, when they became the only EuroVolley champions to win two matches in the same edition after falling 0-2 behind, against Italy in the pool phase and Bulgaria in the semifinal.
Théo Faure leads France’s scoring at this tournament with 118 points, while Mathis Henno has reached 103.
They are the third and fourth French players since 2011 to pass 100 points at a single EuroVolley, following Stephen Boyer’s 158 in 2019 and Antonin Rouzier’s 119 in 2015. France finished fourth in 2023 after losing 0-3 to Italy in the semifinal and 2-3 to Slovenia in the bronze-medal match, with Barthélémy Chinenyeze their top scorer on 75 points.
This is France’s 32nd EuroVolley appearance, matching Bulgaria and trailing only Italy’s 33.
They won silver on their debut in 1948, returned in 1951 and have missed only one edition since — 1995, when they finished bottom of their qualifying group behind Romania, Türkiye and Slovenia. Their only World Championship medal remains the bronze won in 2002. In 2025, France were eliminated in the World Championship pool phase with one win and two defeats, becoming only the second Olympic champions to go out in the first group stage of a World Championship after the United States in 1990.
The 2026 season has also been less straightforward than the Olympic cycle might suggest.
France finished 11th in the VNL with a 6-6 record, missing the quarterfinals for the first time since 2019. Henno was their leading scorer with 189 points and also topped the receiving statistics with 333 total receptions, including 93 successful ones. Tonight, however, the context is entirely different: the European title is one match away.
For Giani, the final represents yet another unique chapter.
He has become the first coach to reach the EuroVolley Gold Medal match with three different teams. He lost the 2015 final with Slovenia to France and the 2017 final with Germany to Russia, before taking France to the decisive match in 2026. This is his sixth EuroVolley as a coach, after leading Slovenia in 2015, Germany in 2017, 2019 and 2021, and France in 2023 and 2026. He is also the only coach to have led a team at each of the last six editions, from 2015 through 2026. As France coach, he has already won Olympic gold in 2024 and two VNL titles, in 2022 and 2024.
Poland arrive with the opportunity to become only the fifth nation to win at least three EuroVolley titles.
Russia, including the Soviet Union, lead with 14, followed by Italy with seven, while Czechia including Czechoslovakia and Serbia including Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro have three each. Poland’s two titles came in 2009 and 2023, and a victory tonight would make them the first team since Italy in 2003 and 2005 to win consecutive European Championships.
Their overall medal collection stands at 11 — two gold, five silver and four bronze — exactly matching the total won by Poland’s women’s team. Their other men’s medals include bronze in 1967 and five consecutive silver medals between 1975 and 1983, each time finishing behind the Soviet Union. If they win tonight, Poland will also qualify for the 2028 Olympic Games for the 12th time and seventh consecutive edition, extending a run that began in 2004. Their Olympic record includes gold in 1976 and silver in Paris in 2024.
Poland’s consistency across the major international calendar has been extraordinary. Since the 2018 World Championship, they have won a medal at 14 of their last 15 major competitions — Olympic Games, World Championship, EuroVolley, VNL and World Cup — with Tokyo 2020 the only exception, when France eliminated them in the quarterfinals.
At EuroVolley itself, Poland have won 17 of their last 18 matches, including 13 in straight sets. They have won seven of their eight matches in this edition in straight sets, with the only exception their 2-3 pool-phase defeat to Bulgaria, which ended a 14-match European Championship winning streak. They then produced a historic run through the knockout rounds, becoming the first team to win the Last 16, quarterfinal and semifinal all 3-0, against Latvia, Germany and Slovenia respectively. No team has ever completed a 3-0 run through the Last 16, quarterfinal, semifinal and final at a single EuroVolley.
Poland also won the 2023 final 3-0 against Italy and could become the first team to win two EuroVolley finals in straight sets.
Bartłomiej Bołądź leads Poland’s scoring in 2026 with 97 points, followed by Tomasz Fornal on 90. Łukasz Kaczmarek was the team’s leading scorer in the 2023 title campaign with 108, while Leon led Poland with 116 in 2019 and 127 in 2021. Marcin Komenda has recorded 60.27% setting efficiency across 26 sets, with Jan Firlej on 58.70% over 13 sets. Across their EuroVolley history, Poland have won 473 sets and lost 299.
Their record in Italy is also particularly striking.
Poland have won 11 of their 18 EuroVolley matches here and have won their last seven, stretching from 2005 through 2026. Their last three competitive matches in Milano were all victories, each 3-2, against Argentina, Serbia and Italy in the 2019 VNL. Grbić was coaching Serbia in that tournament.
This is Poland’s 29th EuroVolley appearance, dating back to their debut in 1950. They are one of only four teams to have participated in every EuroVolley of this century, alongside France, Italy and Serbia, including their historical predecessors. Their only absence came in 1999, when they finished fourth in qualifying.
There is another remarkable geographical parallel to their current campaign.
When Poland won the 2018 World Championship, they played the first two rounds in Bulgaria before moving to Italy for the decisive stages, including the semifinal and final.
In 2026, their EuroVolley journey has followed the same broad route: Bulgaria first, Italy for the business end, and now another final on Italian soil.
Poland also have the opportunity to reinforce their place among the few teams to have conquered all three major men’s titles.
Alongside Russia including the Soviet Union, they are the only nation to have won Olympic, World Championship and EuroVolley gold. Poland’s Olympic title came in 1976, while their World Championship victories came in 1974, 2014 and 2018. Earlier this year they added another major trophy, winning the 2026 VNL final 3-2 against the United States for their third VNL title after 2023 and 2025. Fornal was named MVP and Bołądź finished as Poland’s top scorer with 184 points.
The 2026 VNL campaign also produced one of the most extraordinary individual sets of the international season: Poland’s 3-1 victory over Argentina in Gliwice on 28 June included a first set that Argentina won 50-48 after 59 minutes.
Poland’s success extends through the younger generations as well.
They won the U18 EuroVolley title in Italy this year and took silver at the U22 EuroVolley in Portugal.
And at the centre of it all is Grbić, seeking his second EuroVolley title as a coach after leading Poland to gold in 2023.
As a player, he won the 2001 title with Yugoslavia, and he belongs to the same exclusive group as Giani of players who have collected six EuroVolley medals. His coaching history at the tournament includes Serbia in 2015 and 2017, when they reached the quarterfinals and bronze-medal match respectively, before taking Poland to the title in 2023.
Tonight, the past comes back in several forms.
France and Poland meet again after the Olympic final in Paris, where France took gold.
They meet again in Milano, 17 years after Poland beat France in the EuroVolley final in Izmir. And they meet with two coaches who have already shared a court, a generation of players carrying Olympic and European memories, and two teams with the chance to add another defining chapter to their history.
The reigning Olympic champions against the defending European champions. France against Poland. For one of them, tonight at 21:00, the next chapter ends with European gold!
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
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