• Grupa Azoty Kedzierzyn-Kozle will fight for first-ever Champions League title
• Thrilling golden sets on the way to the final
• International stars make up the club's line-up

For the first time in the history of Polish volleyball club ZAKSA, their team will play in the gold medal match of the CEV Champions League Volley. Officially competing under the name of Grupa Azoty Kedzierzyn-Kozle, their squad made it to this season’s Super Final, hoping to earn their country’s first trophy since the Champions League format was introduced at the turn of the century.

In the last match of the club season in Europe, just days before the start of the 2021 FIVB Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Grupa Azoty’s French captain Benjamin Toniutti is expected to lead his teammates to a successful end of a thrilling Champions League season as they face Italy’s Trentino Itas Trento for the continental title on Saturday, May 1, at 20:30 local time in Verona.

Historically, the club from Kedzierzyn-Kozle have reached the Final Four of the Champions League four times, but only once have they managed to make the podium as bronze medallists in 2003.

Grupa Azoty started the current season with six wins in six matches to top the final standings in Pool A, but then went on a very bumpy road across the playoffs to reach the final. They shocked defending champions Cucine Lube Civitanova in the first leg of the quarterfinals in Italy, but then lost at home to prompt a golden set, which they won by a narrow 16-14. They needed a 15-13 golden set victory to squeeze through the semifinals, after two five-set battles against Russian powerhouse Zenit Kazan, winning the first match away, but losing the second one at home.

Toniutti, the Best Setter and a silver medallist of VNL 2018, put his mastery on display and led all three of his main wing spikers, all Polish internationals, to the leading positions in the season’s statistical charts for both scoring and spiking.

Outside hitter Kamil Semeniuk, who is expected to make his official national team debut during the upcoming VNL 2021, is the second best scorer and the second best attacker of the Champions League, immediately followed in both rankings by opposite Lukasz Kaczmarek, a VNL 2019 bronze medallist. The team’s other main outside, Aleksander Sliwka from Poland’s 2018 FIVB Volleyball World Championship gold medal squad and 2019 FIVB Volleyball World Cup runners-up line-up, is fourth in spiking and sixth in overall scoring.

Another 2018 world champion and 2019 World Cup silver medallist, Jakub Kochanowski, shares his responsibilities at the middle of the net with two-time VNL medallist David Smith of USA, while world-class Polish libero and two-time world champion Pawel Zatorski takes care of the back court for Serbian coach Nikola Grbic’s team.

Watch all Champions League games live on EuroVolley TV. For more, visit the official Super Finals website.