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A year after the Olympics, women’s Italy also won the volleyball World Cup and confirmed that it was the best team in the world and, at this point, one of the best Italian national teams ever in every sport. These are two victories gained differently. In Paris, last summer, Italy dominated the Olympic tournament from the beginning to the end: he lost a single set to the groups, then he won quarters, semifinal and final for 3 sets at 0, exhibiting a rather unpublished superiority at that level.
At the World Cup just ended in Thailand, on the other hand, the national team struggled a lot both in the semifinal against Brazil and in the final against Turkey, both ended in the fifth and decisive set, after giving in certain moments the impression that she would not have been able to win.
In the aftermath of the victory various comments quote “the group spirit” and “the union” of this team, sometimes a little intangible and smoky concepts, but which help to explain how Italy managed to reassemble Brazil after losing the third set 30-28, or winning the tie-break against Turkey after having lost the fourth set in a bad way and being under 6-4 in the fifth (then won 15-8). In those situations the national team is not only a level climb in the game, but has given all its physical and mental resources.
The highlights of the final won against Turkey
The main nucleus of this generation of volleyball players has formed one of the most competitive and talented teams in the world for at least 7-8 years, but only in the last two the national team has expressed all their potential and has become, in essence, unbeatable, since it has not lost since June 2024 and from that moment he has won 36 consecutive games. The change was with the arrival of Julio Velasco, who is 73 years old and who is now defined (without being a hyperbole) “the best coach in the history of Italian sport”, one of the three to win world gold after the Olympic gold, and the only one to win the World Cup with the men’s national team (in 1990 and 1994) and with the female one (in every sport, not only in volleyball).
With the arrival of Velasco, Italy has gained enthusiasm and has matured the awareness in order not to lose, even when the circumstances are not favorable. Against Brazil and Turkey has not always been brilliant and had to cope with Alessia Orro’s ailments (the lifter then awarded the best player of the tournament) and Sarah Fahr, who both played semifinal and final after an ankle distortion.
«This group deserved gold. They worked with humility, with desire, with motivation, they played with courage. In these games we often found ourselves in difficulty, but we never gave up, demonstrating more important values than the technical ones, “said Velasco after the World Cup final.
Literally unbeatable
Appreciated not only for his sporting successes and for his competence, but also for his empathic and almost philosophical way of understanding the leadership, Velasco came to train the national team in November 2023, in a rather stormy period.
Since 2016, the coach was Davide Mazzanti: Italy had come second to the World Cup in 2018, playing an excellent tournament; And in 2021, after being eliminated in the quarterfinals at the Olympics, she had managed to win the Europeans. From that moment, however, things had worsened: the 2022 World Cup, to which Italy had arrived among the favorites, had ended in third place, then there were the disappointments of fourth place at the European Championships of 2023 and the subsequent pre -olmpic tournament (in which Italy had not initially managed to qualify for the 2024 Olympics: it later succeeded with Velasco).
It was not so much the results of Mazzanti who were bankruptcy, as the management of the group and in particular of some players. To the European Championships of 2023, to say, he did not summon the Libero Monica De Gennaro, awarded as the best free of the tournament in the subsequent Olympics and World Cup. But it was above all the relationship with Paola Egonu, opposite of the national team and among the best players in the world, to be emblematic of that period. At the European Championships of 2023 Egonu made the reserve of Kate Anthropova for a long time (the other Italian opposite, also very, very strong) and at the pre -limious tournament she chose not to play due to the now bad relationship with Mazzanti.
Precisely the way Velasco managed to bring Egonu back to the national team and to make her and anthropova coexist shows how things have changed with her arrival, and how exceptional the Argentine coach is in the management of athletes and athletes. From the start, Velasco said that Egonu would be the opposite owner, but he managed to find a way to also involve Anthropova and best use the skills of both.
In volleyball the opposite is generally the player who attacks the greatest number of balls, and there can only be one in the sextet: changing the role in Egonu or anthropova would have been difficult and not very useful. Valasco therefore decided to start using the double change continuously, that is, to insert the reserve opposite (Anthropova) to the course of the Owner Place (Orro) and the reserve driver (Carlotta Cambi) in the place of the opposite owner (Egonu). In this way once per set (more cannot be done) Italy finds itself with three attackers on the front line, so in fact for a long period it manages to have one between Egonu and Anthropova at the forefront.
The double change almost always improves the effectiveness of Italy in attack (it is easier, in general, to take stock of the first line) and to the wall. Furthermore, with the fact that Anthropova was considered immediately as if it were a owner, this then allowed her to be ready when it actually served as the owner, in the moments of Egonu’s difficulty. For example, it happened in the semifinal against Brazil, in which Anthropova made 28 points and Egonu 11. Even in the final both made their contribution: Egonu closed with 22 points, 12 of which in the third set, and anthropova with 14.
The embrace between Paola Egonu and Julio Velasco after the World Cup victory (Volleyball World)
Before the World Cup, the captain of Italy Anna Danesi told how Velasco managed to change things: «He took away several responsibilities and made aware of our strength. He told us to keep all the things out of the group out and who in the past have created problems. It worked, the important thing is now good on the pitch. Then he knows how to spurs us, leads to think one ball at a time. It may seem trivial, but simple things are the most complicated. Julio is good at always pulling out one of his goodies at the right time ».
On 6-4 for Turkey at Tie-break, during the Timeout, Velasco said only one thing to Italian volleyball players: “Decide what to do and do it convinced”. Once he returned to the field, Italy – who until then had not been able to be effective as to his usual wall – became almost unsurpassed: he won 11 of the 13 next points, making five points with the wall. The wall and defense in general were the fundamentals on which Italy built this cycle of victories (perhaps unrepeatable and above all still open) and which have allowed her to almost always impose her game, to exalt and put constant pressure to the opponents.
In one of the first interviews after being appointed national team coach, Velasco said: «I want autonomous and authoritative players, who are not satisfied with doing what I say. I want them to know about volleyball and put that knowledge on the field. If I know about volleyball and they don’t, what teacher are they? Autonomy means more responsibilities, even when centuries of patriarchal culture have transmitted that you should not take it. I teach you to choose what you have to do in the game (not in life, I am not a life teacher), to find the best solutions ».
Julio Velasco with Stella Nervini and Kate Anthropova (Sun Weitong/Xinhua via Zuma Press)
At more than 70 years old, and after almost 25 years in which he had trained only male teams, Velasco (also thanks to a high -level staff, in which among others there is the former coach of the national team Massimo Barbolini) has been able to update and evolve to make a team already very strong at the best. If in the nineties the male national team coached by him was called “generation of phenomena”, today it makes sense to speak of “generation of phenomena”. On Sunday the final, broadcast on Rai 1, was seen by 4 million and 123 thousand people with 33 percent share: they are comparable numbers (higher in certain cases) to those of the Finals of Jannik Sinner in the Grand Slam tournaments (moreover at a time, 14:30, in which there are usually less people in front of the television).
With the exception of Monica De Gennaro, whose level of game at 38 years old continues to be quite extraordinary, all the volleyball players of the national team have reached their best moment of career in recent years. Egonu is 26 years old, Orro 27, Danesi 29, Sylla 30; Anthropova has only 22, Stella Nerini 21, and Sarah Fahr 24. From next year Orro and Sylla will play in the Turkish championship, but until this summer all the 14 convened have played in the Italian one, the most competitive in the world, where every year they face (or play together) and improve each other.
Alessia Orro and Monica De Gennaro (Volleyball World)
For years in Serie A there is the obligation to have at least 3 Italians on the field, and for this reason the teams focus both on Italian players often very young and on the best possible foreigners. Several players of the national team also have a past in Club Italia, a sort of team-national teams that makes the category championships (the A2 series) using only Italian volleyball players: the women’s Club Italia was born in 1998 (ten years before the male one) from an idea by Julio Velasco.
Volleyball, especially in the female, is having a remarkable success at all levels in Italy: last month the Under 21 national team won the World Cup, the Serie A matches are increasingly followed (on TV and live) and the number of people (especially girls) who play volleyball continues to increase. It will not be easy for the national team to keep on this excellence, but the prospects are encouraging. Velasco will remain the coach to the 2028 Olympics, and in recent months (in the Nations League, another tournament won by Italy) began to insert several new players in the national team.
Some of them have already been protagonists at the World Cup: nervs in particular has often played as a crusher owner together with Sylla, alternating with Gaia Giovannini (who is 23 years old). Velasco said that some players will take a pause period, after two very intense years: it is likely that at the Nations League of 2026 they will play with more continuity Chize, Benedetta Sartori, Linda Nwakalor, Eleonora Fersino, in order to start a small generational change in view of the next Olympics, and even before the European Championships, who will play at the end of the next summer and to which Italy will present themselves inevitably as a favorite.
