Polish volleyball players became world champions... without reaching the final. They needed "Kat"
The Polish national volleyball team is one of the favorites at the ongoing World Championships in the Philippines. On Saturday, the Poles will play Canada for a quarterfinal spot.
In the last decade, such a fervor has developed around men's volleyball (fueled by successive successes) that failing to win a medal at the event would be a major disappointment for the entire community. More experienced fans, however, remember a time when winning a medal at such a prestigious event was a dream. Then came "Kat."
This is, of course, a nickname that stuck with Hubert Wagner due to his personality and coaching methods. When the 32-year-old, with no coaching experience, took over the national team from Tadeusz Szlagor, it could have been considered madness, or at best, a desperate move.
It quickly became clear, however, that Wagner was not only the best choice, but also a man who changed the face of Polish volleyball. Sure, he joined a brilliant generation, but he'd just played with most of the players on the court. And the transition from teammate to uncompromising coach and mentor smacks of disaster. And yet, it worked, thanks in part to the wisdom of the players themselves, who trusted their former colleague's methods.
The first, and extremely demanding, test for the Wagner team was to be the 1974 World Championships, hosted by Mexico. Poles weren't considered potential medalists. Until then, we'd only brought home two medals from international events—a silver from the 1965 World Cup and a bronze from the 1967 European Championships. However, the athletes themselves felt the power in their legs and a surge of confidence after training with 20-kilogram weights.
Polish volleyball players are world champions. For the first time"Watching our matches, you can see at times that we probably had the greatest mental strength of all," Ryszard Bosek told Polish Radio. And it's hard to disagree—Wagner's team was even called the "fifth-set champion."
Poland kicked off the World Cup on October 13th with a 3-0 victory over Egypt. In the first phase of the tournament, they also faced the United States (3-1) and the USSR (3-2). The second phase of the tournament? Another perfect record. The Polish national team defeated Belgium 3-0, East Germany 3-0, and Mexico, the hosts, 3-1.
Quarterfinal, semifinal, final? None of those things. The then World Championship system included a so-called final stage, which began on October 22nd. There, the Poles first defeated the USSR 3-2 in a grueling battle, then proved superior to Czechoslovakia and East Germany—also winning in five sets. At the end of the final stage, they defeated Romania 3-0 and Japan 3-1. And so, after winning eleven matches, we became world champions for the first time.
"I remember feeling relieved when we won. There was a lot of pressure on us to win, and afterward, I was deflated. The thought that it was over was liberating," recalled Ryszard Bosek.
Thus began a golden era in Polish volleyball. Two years later, Huber Wagner's team brought home gold medals at the Montreal Olympics. Who would have thought we would have to wait 40 years for another world championship?
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