Thousands hail Wlazly as he bids emotional farewell to competitive volleyball

Just short of turning 40, Mariusz Wlazly is about to put an end to his glorious volleyball career as an athlete. He will play his last official match on Friday, but he already bid an emotional farewell to the fans at his last home game as a player of Trefl Gdansk.

The first leg of the home-and-away fifth-place series in the Polish PlusLiga between Trefl and Project Warszawa Warsaw started in a very special way. Hailed by over four thousand fans on the stands at the Ergo Arena on Monday, a symbolic change of guard took place. Just before the official start of the game, in standing ovations, Mariusz Wlazly’s 14-year-old son Arkadiusz subbed in for his father to take a symbolic first serve. Encouraged by spectators and teammates alike, Arek jump-served a rally, which Trefl won to make this emotional moment even more special.

“It was an important and emotional moment for me. I couldn't even predict these emotions. A few times my voice trembled and my throat tightened,” admitted Poland’s iconic star.

The whole evening at Ergo Arena went under the theme of Wlazly’s farewell – from the moment of his grand entrance to the court to the moment he untied his shoes to symbolically hang them under a giant Trefl jersey with his name and number two on it that was brought down from the ceiling. In addition, Trefl’s players entered the court in shirts with Wlazly’s face and letters forming the inscription ‘Thank you, Mariusz’.

During the actual match, Project Warszawa proved better in the first two sets. Wlazly came in for the start of the third set and helped his team win it to narrow their deficit. Despite his 12 points, including two aces and a block, over the two sets on the court, Trefl were closed to levelling the score, but failed to completely change the course of the match and the visitors took an important 3-1 (25-21, 25-20, 18-25, 27-25) advantage ahead of Friday’s return game in Warsaw.

Born on August 4, 1993, Mariusz started playing volleyball in his native Wielun. He began his professional career at Skra Belchatow in 2003 and spent the next 17 seasons competing for that club and winning nine national titles, seven national cups and four national super cups, as well as silver medals from the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championships in 2009 and 2010 and from the CEV Champions League in 2012, when he was also named MVP. In 2015, he was briefly loaned to Qatar’s Al Arabi Doha, where he won the Emir Cup, and in 2020, he transferred to Trefl, where he is about to finish his career.

In 2003, Wlazly was part of the Polish team that won gold at the FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship. The following year he made his debut for the senior national team and, in 2006, he was already Poland’s leading player as they earned FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship silver in Japan. Wlazly played at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, where his team achieved a fifth-place finish. The greatest success in the legendary athlete’s career came in 2014, when he led Poland to the World Championship title, himself earning the Most Valuable Player award and the opposite’s spot on the competition’s Dream Team, just before retiring from the national team. That was just the most prominent of the numerous individual awards Wlazly was honoured with throughout his playing career.

“An individual in a team sport doesn't mean much, especially in a sport like volleyball. It is obvious that without the work of my colleagues I would not have received these awards,” Wlazly told sportowefakty.wp.pl. “If an athlete is able to perform all tasks for a long time without detriment to health, show his full abilities and give a lot from himself emotionally and mentally, it is a great success. I came to an understanding with my body. I got along with it so well that I am finishing my career only today, almost at the age of 40.”

After finishing his career as an athlete, Wlazly will stay in the sport, but he will continue working at the Trefl club in a completely different role, as a coordinator of psychological preparation within the training staff.

“The basis of my duties will be organizing the cooperation between the team and the psychologist,” he explained. “It is worth noting that I have completed postgraduate studies in pedagogy and sports psychology and I am a Master’s student of psychology at the University of Gdansk. I believe that psychological preparation is as important as other elements of training and preparing players for sports competition.”

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