“Special group” of USA men face Poland in men’s volleyball semifinals
PARIS — If you’ve ever been to one of Poland’s matches, you know the chant.
“Polska! Polska! Polska”
There’s going to be a lot of that Wednesday afternoon in Paris Arena South 1 when Poland plays the USA in the Paris Olympics men’s volleyball semifinals.
Poland advanced Monday with a four-set win over Slovenia and then the USA did the same to Brazil, which is out of the semifinals for the first Olympics since 2000.
And now these two teams, that played a friendly in Poland the week before the Games and with rosters of friends and club teammates, go at it again at 4 p.m. local (10 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Pacific).
“I’ve had a lot of Poland questions already because I play in Poland,” veteran USA libero Erik Shoji said just shortly after the match. “They’ve got a great team. I know a lot of them, I’ve played probably six of them and I know a lot about them,” he added with a laugh, “in life and in volleyball. So it’s fun. It’s going to be a hard match, that’s for sure.”
The winner plays for gold; the loser for bronze.
“It’s a big deal to be back in this situation, as I’ve wanted for these guys,” USA coach John Speraw said. “They’ve been here before. So for them to have another opportunity to be in this medal moment in the semifinals of the Olympic Games is a real special opportunity that not many people get.”
Indeed. The USA men have won gold three times, in 1984 and 1988 and again in 2008. In 2016 the Americans won bronze, but in the last Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo, they failed to advance to the quarterfinals, something that has driven this group ever since.
Between the four teams — USA, Poland, Italy and France — “there’s a lot of respect,” Speraw said. “These players all know each other really well, and if you think about the teams that are left, they all play with another and all play in the best leagues in the world in Italy and Poland and I think everyone’s excited about these matchups.”
Italy plays France at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Poland won Olympics gold in 1976, but is in the semifinals for the first time since 1980. France — which had never won a medal — took gold in Tokyo after losing to the USA in the first match of the tournament. Italy, which has never won Olympics gold, got silver in 1996, 2004 and lost to the French in the Tokyo final.
Poland is led by Wilfredo Leon, who ranks seventh in the Games with 68 kills. The USA’s TJ DeFalco is tied for ninth with 62. American Taylor Averill is second in blocks with 13 and Leon is tied for the lead with 11 aces. Averill has the most USA aces, six.
While Averill, while 32, is a first-time Olympian, many of the team have been around a while. Matt Anderson (37) and David Smith (39) are in their fourth Olympics; Shoji, Micah Christenson, Max Holt and Thomas Jaeschke are in their third. TJ DeFalco, Garrett Muagututia and Aaron Russell are in their second Games.
“This is a really special group that has meant a lot to me,” Speraw said. “I’ve spent 12 years of my life coaching these guys and some — David Smith, Matt Anderson, Max Holt — not much longer. And they’ve had a great career. Great VNL runs, great World Cups, great Olympic runs, and they have that one Olympics that wasn’t very good. It was somewhat anomalous for this group.
“My whole goal for them this summer was for them to get to this point. That was my goal for them.”
Speraw is coming off back-to-back NCAA titles as the coach of the UCLA men. He was an assistant to Hugh McCutcheon when the USA won gold in Beijing in 2008.
So he’s played Poland more than can be imagined. This team “is physical and big, they serve the ball really well, they’ve got good systems, they play really good defense, they’re a really well-rounded team.
“And Poland is deep, so that they have the ability to be versatile and match up differently with different teams. If they need to bring somebody off the bench to make a difference they can. The hard part about playing Poland is you have to be ready for everybody.”
When they played each other in Volleyball Nations League on May 22 in Türkiye, Poland swept, but none of the Olympians were on that USA squad.
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