Bartosz Kurek bitterly about the realities in PlusLiga. "I really wanted to stay in Poland"

Let's recall the sequence of events. Bartosz Kurek returns to PlusLiga in the summer of 2024. The captain of the Polish national team, after winning the Olympic vice-championship, initials a contract with ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle, where he played years ago. "Kuraś" becomes the team captain, and the team will also be coached by Andrea Giani. That is, the Italian champion, coach of the gold medalists at the 2020/21 Olympics and the 2024 French.

PlusLiga: Bartosz Kurek on the backstage of parting ways with the Polish competition

Everything seems to be going well… until the first round of PlusLiga. Then Kurek suffers an unfortunate injury after being hit by a ball in the eye area. The result? A few months of absence for the ZAKSA captain. However, when Kurek returns to play, he becomes one of the leaders not only of the club from Kędzierzyn-Koźle, but of the entire PlusLiga.

At the end of 2024, in a conversation with Krzysztof Stanowski on Channel Zero, "Kuraś" announces that he is parting ways with ZAKSA at the end of the season. Since then, it is difficult to have any objections to the experienced attacker playing for the Kędzierzyn colors. Although, as the volleyball player himself admits in the aforementioned conversation with "Stan", he has not signed a contract for the next campaign, he is finally saying goodbye to PlusLiga.

Now we know for sure that Kurek will play in the Japanese league again. Money? As he admitted in an interview for "Przegląd Sportowy" and Onet, it was not the most important thing.

– I didn't have many super interesting offers. I really wanted to stay in Poland, but there were only inquiries from PlusLiga, without any specifics. It was similar with offers from Turkey. I think that several presidents missed a good opportunity, because I would have been willing to go much lower in the contract, just to stay in Poland. I'm glad that the offer from Tokyo appeared and I'm very excited about what we can achieve there. It was the only offer from Japan that was interesting enough for me to take advantage of it, and the club is very keen on me – admitted Kurek in an interview with Edyta Kowalczyk.

It is even more of a pity that no one took up the challenge of keeping Kurek in the PlusLiga. There were media leaks about the desire, among others, from the club from Olsztyn. Ultimately, however, it came to nothing, which is a pity, because Kurek is a truly great figure - going beyond the volleyball scale - which we emphasized in a separate text .

Now, volleyball fans in Poland will watch "Kuraś" again, but "only" in the national team. After the 2024 Olympics, the captain remained on the team led by coach Nikola Grbić.

VNL 2025: Poles are runners-up in the table. Now it's time for Ergo Arena!

After eight matches played in two tournaments of the ongoing Nations League, the Poles recorded six victories. The Polish national team in Xi'an, China, during their first tournament, VNL 2025, won 3:1 against the Netherlands, 3:1 against Japan, 3:0 against Turkey and 3:0 against Serbia. Four matches, four victories and a full set of points - this gave the position of the leaders of the Nations League for the white and red team of coach Grbić.

Things were a bit worse during the tournament in Chicago. The Poles started with a 2:3 defeat to the world champions Italy, then beat the Canadians 3:2, won 3:0 against the Americans and recorded their second defeat, 1:3 against Brazil. Ultimately, after two tournaments, Poland is the runner-up in the VNL 2025 table. Brazil is in the lead with one more victory than the Poles. On the other hand, third-placed Italy has the same number of victories as Poland.

The last tournament of the intercontinental phase during VNL 2025 will be a home game for the Poles. Coach Grbić's team will present itself at the Tri-City Ergo Arena during the tournament on July 16-20.

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