Polish volleyball players will today play their third match in Group C of the European Championships. At 8:00 PM, they will face North Macedonia in Skopje. The white and red team will strive to maintain their winning streak and their position as group leaders after victories over the Czech Republic (3:0) and the Netherlands (3:1).
Coach Nikola Grbic’s proteges began the tournament with matches against theoretically the toughest opponents in the group. The clash with North Macedonia will be the first of three matches in which they will face European underdogs. In the world rankings, their Sunday opponents hold the distant 40th place.
The Macedonians do not have a long history on the international volleyball scene. They made their European Championship debut in 2019, finishing 17th. Two years later, they placed 23rd. Their most significant success is the silver medal in the European League, which they achieved from 2015 to 2017.
The white and red team has faced them only four times. In 2014, during the qualifiers for the 2015 European Championship, they defeated them 3:0 twice. However, a year later, in the European League, where the Polish B team competed, they lost 2:3 and 1:3.
The hosts of Group C do not boast global stars in their lineup, but it includes two players known from the Polish PlusLiga – attacker Nikola Gjorgiev, who played for Onico Warsaw in the 2017/18 season, and his brother Gjorgi Gjorgiev, a setter who represented Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie in the 2020/21 season.
The match between the current vice-world champions and the Macedonian volleyball players is scheduled to begin at 8:00 PM. Three hours earlier, Denmark will face Montenegro.
The top four teams from the group will advance to the Round of 16. In the first part of the knockout phase, the Polish team will relocate to Bari, Italy.
The tournament, held in four countries: Italy, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Israel, will run until September 16th. The medal matches will take place in Rome.