2023

In focus: Adam Kowalski

Feature

Article Mon, Oct 31 2022
Author: Nikolay Markov
Nikolay Markov

The 13 players on this season’s Berlin Recycling Volleys roster for the men’s CEV Champions League Volley 2023 come from 11 different countries and five different continents. Neighboring Poland is one of these countries and their libero Adam Kowalski is one of the players French head coach Cedric Enard will rely on as his stellar squad takes on Pool B of Europe’s strongest club competition.

Adam Kowalski

“The composition of our team reflects the character of the city of Berlin, which is a mixture of many cultures. I feel great pleasure to be part of a multicultural team full of such interesting people and I feel comfortable in a team with a winning mentality like BR Volleys,” Adam Kowalski has said in various media interviews.

The 180-cm-tall athlete is in his fourth season with the German club. He joined in 2019 and has since won two national titles, in 2021 and 2022 (in his first season, the Bundesliga championship was prematurely interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic), and one national cup in 2020. Less than a month ago, Kowalski also lifted his fourth German super cup.

The upcoming Champions League edition will also be the fourth in Kowalski’s career. In 2020, he and his BR Volleys teammates finished third in the pool and were ranked 11th in the standings before the pandemic struck. In 2021, they finished second in their pool, and in 2022 they won their pool. On both occasions, they advanced to the quarterfinals, where they were eliminated to end up fifth in the final Champions League standings.

Last season, Kowalski was in the role of a back-up libero on the BR Volleys squad. The first libero, Argentinean international Santiago Danani, has now transferred to Poland’s Aluron CMC Warta Zawercie and will play against Kowalski and a few more of his former teammates in the Pool B battles. However, the 28-year-old Polish athlete seems to be in the role of second libero again, after his club added the more experienced Japanese volleyballer Satoshi Tsuiki to its roster in that position.

"We know exactly what Adam gives us. He is important to the team. He is always fully committed,” coach Enard told Polsat Sport. “He is calm, but has a positive character, a willingness to train and that's good for our team."

“It is important to me that coach Cedric Enard appreciates me and wants me to be part of his team. It is known, however, that I would like to play more and be a first libero. I still have that ambition and will try to get this position,” Kowalski said in a WP SportoweFakty interview.

Adam Kowalski started practicing volleyball at Norwid Czestochowa in his native Poland and won several national medals at various age categories, including the junior championship titles in 2012 and 2013, and was once named Best Libero of the junior national finals.

Later in his career in senior volleyball, Kowalski went through several PlusLiga teams - Cerrad Czarni Radom, AZS Czestochowa and Chemik Bydgoszcz. He had a short period as a member of the Polish national team and represented his country in the CEV European League, where they took bronze, and at the Baku 2015 European Games, where they finished in fourth place. In 2016-2017, as a player of Czestochowa, Kowalski topped the best receivers’ ranking of the PlusLiga season.

In 2019, Adam Kowalski made his first international transfer from Chemik to BR Volleys and has been playing for the German team ever since.

“The fact that I will be in Berlin Recycling Volleys for the fourth consecutive year speaks for itself,” Kowalski told siatka.org. “The club is well organized. We play in the Champions League, which I have not experienced in Poland before. Once you play in the Champions League, then it's hard to give it up. We are a leading team and that is also cool. Winning is nice! It is addictive and hence the decision to stay longer.”

Watch the Champions League live on EuroVolleyTV.

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