We already know the first surprise of the 2023/24 volleyball season. Grupa Azoty ZAKSA Kędzierzyn Koźle finished the first round of the regular season in ninth place, which means the team from the Opole region will not defend the Polish Cup they won in Krakow last year, as they were simply eliminated from the competition. According to the rules of the competition, the six best teams of the first part of the league season will compete for this cup.
In the coming days, Kedzierzyn Kozel's team faces a second challenge in the face of all – mainly health – problems this season. ZAKSA will fight to stay in the competition for the European Cup. This cup is defended by Kedzierzyn's team, we remind you that they have won the Champions League for the last three years. In order to fight and stay in contention for a fourth consecutive triumph, Zaxa's players must look for points in Piraeus against Olympiakos, where they have a home game against Knack Roselares in the last round of the group stage.
1. An important victory for Lublin volleyball players. They took a place in the quarter-finals
We know that Kedzierzyn Kozelé's team will undergo quite a lot of changes after the season. We wrote about this a week ago that the current leaders of the team said goodbye to the team – Lukasz Kaczmarek, who plans to play for Jastrzębski Wegiel, Bartosz Bednorz, who in turn is already trying on the striped jersey of Resovia. and Alexander Shlivka, who is going abroad. Japanese and Turkish destinations have recently been joined by an Italian destination with a stop in Perugia.
During one of Zaksa's last home games, fans hung a banner in the hall that read “Swider save!” He was referring to the legend of the Kedzierzyn club and today the president of PZPS, Sebastian Swiderski. It was Schwiederski, when he was president of Zaxa, who laid the foundation for the club's recent great successes from Kedzierzyn-Kožel.
– I can't help it anymore, these are not years, – Swiderski said, of course, half jokingly, half seriously, when asked about the situation mentioned by the banner displayed in the last issue of 7 Strefa magazine. – The spine is in such a condition that I have no chance to return to the field.
The context of the banner, of course, had a different background and was more about organizational issues and the atmosphere around the club.
– Now I have other things to do and I probably don't know everything, so it makes no sense to raise the temperature too much – he added diplomatically.
On Saturday, Zaxa played at home against Jastrzebski Vegiel. In the PlusLiga clash, the defending champions came out on top and eventually won the match 3-1. Although Zaksa left the field in defeat, he played perhaps his best match of the season. In addition to the performance of Kedzierzyn's team, the atmosphere of the match created by the fans there was encouraging, as they showed great loyalty to the club in their own way and reminded us that the words about the famous Zaksiarski DNA are not just works. At this moment and despite the recent weak results, the famous “Zaxa family” is still going strong, quite, quite, and the current season, which started like this, should not end like this…