{"id":3894,"date":"2025-09-29T06:42:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=3894"},"modified":"2025-09-29T06:42:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:42:38","slug":"italy-edge-out-bulgaria-in-four-sets-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/italy-edge-out-bulgaria-in-four-sets-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy edge out Bulgaria in four sets battle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Italy have successfully defended their World Championship title after beating Bulgaria 3-1 (25-21, 25-17, 17-25, 25-10) in the final at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the fifth world title for the Italians, who only lost one match in the \u00a0competition enroute their gold medal feat. Their previous gold medal triumphs were in 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A total of 16,429 fans thronged the SM Mall to watch the final, capping what has been a hugely successful competition in Manila, Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opposite Yuri Roman\u00f2 led Italy with 22 points (16 kills, 1 block, 5 aces) while teammate Mattia Bottolo added 19 points (10 kills, 2 blocks, 7 aces). Aleksandar Nikolov replied for Bulgaria with a game-high 23 points (21 kills, 1 block, 1 ace).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the second silver medal for Bulgaria having also finished second in the 1970 edition on home soil. It\u2019s also the first podium finish for the Volleyball Empowerment-backed Bulgaria since 2006 when they claimed bronze in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bulgaria \ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddec vs. Italy \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 - Gold Match | Highlights | Men&#039;s World Championships 2025\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QEyDaU8P-XM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier in the third place playoff, Poland bounced back to winning ways with a\u00a03-1 (25-18, 23-25, 25-22, 25-21)\u00a0sweep of another Volleyball Empowerment team Czechia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Star outside hitter Wilfredo Leon led Poland with 26 points (23 kills, 3 blocks) while Lukas Vasina replied for Czechia with 19 points (18 kills, 1 block).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the first bronze medal finish for Poland in history. Previously, they had three world titles and two silver medals on their record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s always a struggle. It doesn\u2019t matter who is on the other side, because now everybody is playing volleyball. Everybody has got two to three players, who are playing in strong clubs, and they can play a really great game. So, I am proud of these guys!\u201d said Poland\u2019s Serbian head coach Nikola Grbic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe were devastated yesterday, because the expectations were higher, because we know how hard we worked, what quality we have and how important it was for us to try to play another final. Coming back from that tough loss yesterday wasn\u2019t easy at all. That\u2019s why I am satisfied that we came back. I have great guys and I am proud of them. I just hope we will continue to come back to Poland with a medal every time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Czechia \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddff vs. Poland \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf1 - Bronze Match | Highlights | Men&#039;s World Championships 2025\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LCvT566tOZg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Italy have successfully defended their World Championship title after beating Bulgaria 3-1 (25-21, 25-17, 17-25, 25-10) in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-volleyball"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed.jpg",2560,1440,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-2048x1152.jpg",2048,1152,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/newsbeat\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/italy-volleyball-world-champions_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3898,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions\/3898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}