This is the successor of Bartosz Kurek. The Polish volleyball player has had a difficult journey

The Poles are playing their first VNL 2025 tournament in Xi'an, China. The team led by coach Nikola Grbić started with victories, in both cases in four sets (3:1), over the Netherlands and Japan.

Kewin Sasak is the new leader of the Polish national team. The attacker's great form

During the tournament in China, the coach of the Polish national team focused on many new faces, if only in comparison to the last challenge of the 2024 season, the Olympic tournament. On the one hand, in the current campaign, several silver medalists were given time to rest or recover from injuries – for example, Marcin Janusz and Mateusz Bieniek.

The other side is the perspective of building new solutions for the Polish national team. The 2025 season is the first part of the Olympic cycle, where the final, most important event of the four-year period will be the Los Angeles Games (2028). For this reason, coach Grbić is looking for new solutions. One of them is Kewin Sasak.

The attacker made his debut in the Polish national team relatively late, at the age of 28. Sometimes, however, sports life writes a completely different scenario than one might expect. Sasak comes from Dębica in the Podkarpacie region, but he started his senior career in the eastern part of Poland, but... in Białystok (local BAS). Additionally, the attacker also played for MKS MDK Warsaw, during the period of playing in youth groups. First Białystok, then Ślepsk Suwałki, and finally moving to Trefl Gdańsk. And as we know for a long time, the Tri-City Ergo Arena can get the best out of a volleyball player.

Was it the same with Sasak? It seems not entirely, although it was certainly at Trefl that the player had the opportunity to show himself to a wider audience. In the 2018/19 season in Gdańsk, Maciej Muzaj was seen as the "number one". At that time, he was considered one of the greatest talents among Polish attackers, with the potential to play an important role even in the Polish national team. Ultimately, however, Muzaj's career took a slightly different course; last season he played in the Japanese league, but currently Sasak is much closer to the narrow squad of the national team.

After his stay in Gdańsk (2018-22 in total), the attacker made an unconventional decision to choose the Czech league. Much weaker than the PlusLiga, but offering great opportunities in terms of regular appearances. It was a decision that turned out to be a turning point in Sasak's career. The 2022/23 season spent in the colors of VK CEZ Karlovarsko allowed the volleyball player to gain confidence (including winning the bronze medal in the league and the Czech Super Cup), which in the next campaign the volleyball player transformed into very good performances in the colors of... Trefl Gdańsk again. This time, however, Sasak was already one of the most important figures, in a duet with the receiver Mikołaj Sawicki. Both later set a course for Bogdanka LUK Lublin. For Sasak, a symbolic one, again to the eastern part of the country, as it turned out, to win the Polish championship. And let's add that the Lublin club also reached for the Challenge Cup.

One could wonder, however, how Sasak would translate his important role in the PlusLiga winners' team into national team play. The attacker made his debut during the Silesia Cup, in the Spodek Arena in Katowice in a friendly match against Ukraine. He made his mark in the wider waters in the aforementioned Nations League. Whenever he got a chance to play from Grbić, he immediately turned it into significant benefits for the national team.

In two matches, Sasak scored a total of 39 points. Against the Dutch and Japanese, the volleyball player impressed not only in attack, with his effectiveness and reach, but also by adding a lot of good in the service area. The most recent example? The score is 20:24 in the first set of the Poland-Japan match, Sasak on serve and eventually the Poles pull out this set , first leading to the score of 24:24, and finally 27:25.

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Will this be Bartosz Kurek's successor? There's certainly no point in writing off "Kuraś", given how much good he did last season in the PlusLiga. ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle had a lot of fun with Kurek, although there's no hiding the fact that the captain of the national team won't be any younger and with Sasak to compete with, both players will certainly benefit from that. And coach Grbić will also have more room to maneuver.

VNL 2025: When is the next match of the Polish national volleyball team?

Friday will be a day off for the Polish national team. The Olympic vice-champions will return to action on Saturday. Then, coach Grbić's team will play Turkey. The match will start at 1:00 PM Polish time.

The match will be broadcast on the open Polsat channel, Polsat Sport 1, and online, for example via the Polsat Box Go platform.

Read also: Who is the new coach of the national team? The choice of the Polish Football Association seems obvious Read also: Bad news about Hubert Hurkacz. Sad information from the Netherlands