The other day, I went to see the 26th round match of the Polish Men's Volleyball League, Warsaw vs. Nysa, held in Warsaw. I would like to report on that event.
About the Polish League
Polish Men's Volleyball League, commonly known asPurslegais one of the world's highest level men's volleyball leagues. Not only Polish players but also top players from all over the world gather and compete fiercely. The league is played with 14 teams playing home and away games, and the top 8 teams advance to the playoffs, and the last place team is automatically relegated.
Meet the team
Projekt Warszawa
7th place this season (as of the end of the 22nd round)
Last season: 3rd place
Home team Warsaw. Captain #8Vrona, the same middle blocker #11NowakowskiThey have many players with experience playing for the Polish national team, but they seem to be struggling this season. They want to win this game and ensure their place in the playoffs. Outside hitter #2Kforekis my personal favorite.
PSG Stal Nysa
14th place this season (as of the end of the 22nd round)
Last season: 13th
Nisa, the away team, is in a difficult situation this season, just like last season. However, the Tunisian opposite, who is the source of points, is #10VentaraBe careful. We want to win this match and keep our hopes of staying in the Pulsliga. P is "pe" not "pee" and G is "ge" not "gee".
Buying tickets
Ticket sales for Plusliga are handled by each team, but you can find a link to them on the Plusliga official website (https://www.plusliga.pl/).
The easiest way is to click on the match schedule at the top of the page to see the details, then click on "BILETY" (which means "tickets" in Polish) to be taken to a page where you can purchase tickets.
plusliga.pl
For Warsaw home games, you will be redirected to a page called eBlet.pl (https://www.ebilet.pl/), where you can purchase tickets. The page is in Polish, but there is a button in the upper right corner of the screen to switch to English.
ebilet.pl
When you buy a ticket, a PDF ticket will be sent to you by email, so you can print it out. The ticket price this time was 40 zloty (about 1,200 yen, 1 zloty = 30 yen). The ticket prices for other teams are roughly the same. It's cheap. However, when I saw it 7 years ago, there were some places where the ticket price was 15 zloty (about 450 yen), so this is still on the expensive side.
Actual printed ticket
How to get to the venue
The venue for this event was Hala Sportowa KOŁO.
Warsaw's home games were originally played at Arena Ursynów, but the arena is currently unavailable as it is being used as a shelter for Ukrainian refugees.
To get to the venue, Hala Sportowa Koło, take tram number 24 from Warsaw Central Station and get off at Magistercka. The journey takes about 25 minutes and costs 3.4 zloty (approximately 102 yen) for a 20-minute ticket (as of April 2022). You can search the route on Google Maps.
By the way, the match on this day started late at 20:30, so you had to be careful on the way home. Regular buses and trams don't run during the late night hours, and N-number buses run instead. Therefore, you can still get home without using a taxi, but you need to be careful because the route and travel time can change significantly.
Warsaw tram
Entering the venue
The venue, the gymnasium, was close to the tram stop so I didn't get lost, but it was cold that day and it was snowing so even the short walk was very cold... Also, the road was dark.
Exterior of the venue
There were people who looked like fans hanging around near the entrance to the venue, but I mustered up all my courage and pushed my way through them to enter the venue.
Polish people hanging out at the entrance
At the entrance, you will undergo a simple body and baggage inspection, and once you have passed, you will show your ticket and have the barcode scanned. By the way, whether or not there is a body or baggage inspection depends on the venue, and most venues do not generally do so.
The view near the entrance
Our seats were in the second floor stands, and there was a team goods stand in the hallway on the way there. Some teams, especially popular teams, have replica uniforms and other team goods available for purchase at home games, but some teams do not have merchandise sales at the venue.
I forgot to ask the prices of the goods at the venue, but according to the team's online shop page, the replica uniform was 99 zloty (about 2,970 yen) and the muffler towel was 25 zloty (about 750 yen). The replica uniforms are made by 4F, the manufacturer of the actual uniforms, so they are a great deal considering the price and quality.
Merchandise section
As soon as I went up the stairs, I found my block of seats. Depending on the venue, Pulsliga has a variety of seating options, such as reserved seats, block reserved seats, and unreserved seats, but this venue only had block reserved seats, so I secured a seat at the back of the block that offered a relatively good view.
View from the seat
It was 20 minutes before the start of the match, but the seats were not filled. To begin with, this venue only has about 300 seats, so the number of spectators was very small. It is true that Warsaw is still a new team, so there are not many fans, and their opponent, Nisa, was also the last-place team, so there was probably not much attention on them. Also, the late start of the match at 20:30 may have had an impact.
However, I still managed to suppress my pounding heart even before the protocol began, as it was my first time watching Przliga in person in two years.
Continued in Part 2
Photo: PLPS, author
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