Poland standout Leon promises a show for PH volleyball fans
Poland’s Wilfredo Leon is well aware of the Filipino volleyball fans who couldn’t make it on-site for the 2025 FIVB Men’s Volleyball Championship.
So he’s promising that if they come to the Poland games, they’ll witness something worth the price of admission.
Following his team’s 34-32, 25-15, 25-19 win over Romania on Saturday evening, Leon urged volleyball fans around the country to enjoy the action in both the Araneta Coliseum and the Mall of Asia Arena in the coming days.
“I understand that you can be tired to watch all the entire day but [the] Polish team is always inviting you,” he told the Inquirer, fresh off a dominant campaign-opener.
“We will do our best so you need to come here for us and you will have one of the best shows ever.”
The FIVB games have been receiving flak lately from fans online, with the turnout of viewers for the first three days of the global event.
Some showed dismay with the ticket prices, an issue that was soon addressed as organizers slashed ticket prices as a birthday gift to President Marcos.
Despite that, though, spectators have not been exactly flocking to the Pasay or Cubao complexes the way they did during last year’s Volleyball Nations League.
Electricity
On Saturday, the Big Dome garnered the most viewers when Japan took center court in front of 7,518 spectators.
The following games didn’t see the same amount of crowd, but there was still a sizable number who watched until the last game between Poland and Romania.
Despite that, though, Leon still feels the love from the Filipino fans and he believes the number of live viewers will rise with more days left in the FIVB competition.
Among the taglines in the ongoing FIVB games is, “it is electrifying.”
While the crowd count didn’t show it on the surface level as Leon would have wanted, Belgium’s Sam Deroo certainly felt the electricity on Sunday.
“It’s exciting, when the speaker announced our team you could immediately feel the boost of energy from the fans,” he said. “Clearly they were on our side which gave a lot of good vibes [to] the team.”
The Belgians swept Ukraine, 25-16, 25-17, 25-22, in front of a crowd that was supportive of the Belgians.
If the Filipino crowd proved anything over the weekend in terms of support, it was that they did not cheer for the dog in the fight but for the fight in the dog.
Deroo hopes to see more of those fans cheering their hearts out for Belgium’s next game against powerhouse Italy.
“It was very cool, I hope to see more people in the next games to cheer us on. We’ll be the underdogs against Italy so let’s see. I’m excited.”
