Has an social way of admitting that he does not know, Julio Velasco, Italian of Argentina on the contrary, that sort of King Midas that transforms all the balls that his volleyball teams touch in gold: «Many times I wonder if the relationship problems in a team are born because the game does not work or if the tensions make sure that it does not play well»,, He told the Italian CT from the Cavalese retreat while preparing the World Cup in Thailand. «You can’t know, it’s the egg and the hen. But all these difficulties of relationship that I was talking about I have not found them. I told them: “I don’t care if you are friends, in an esquadra as in the workplace you can’t be friends with everyone, the important thing is that a common goal is pursued, then everyone does his own”. Of these girls I can only say more than good: they always worked and I did nothing than ».
Expression from the low profile, not to say low razor, if we consider that in 16 months, since he took it in his hand, the women’s national team – which after Tokyo in 2021 everyone said disintegrated – plays as best he could not: he won the last one from the unbeaten twice, the Volleyball Nations League (VNL), a chopped competition that lasts a month with an infinite number of games, after the Olympic gold in Paris 2024 and before 2025 World Cup, for a thread of 36 games won consecutively.
When he got noticed too much modesty he specified: “I was talking about the relational aspect: in the game we did many things and I think the players found them functional: we worked on the reception of the opponent, theme that in many teams underestimated. I have tried to always ask for few things and clear, because if they are few it is easier to change. I ask to change one thing at a time, until you change what I don’t ask for anything else. I always insist on wanting autonomous and authoritative players on the pitch: they must know how to decide, not depend on me nor on anyone else ».
It is the theme that we heard in the last time out at one point from the final victory in the Nations League when Velasco, to the girls who faced an opponent’s comeback, recalled to act overall, thinking each one of their task, without limiting himself to putting himself in the hands of the crusher. In those moments, of comparison during the games, more technical details are heard than motivational speeches: “They always represent me as a psychologist,” explained the CT, “but if the game does not work the beautiful speeches are not enough, the concrete problems of the teams must be solved”.
“I am very well with this technical approach,” explained Alessia Orro, the strongest driver in the world, the fulcrum of the direction of the sextet owner of Italy, called to sort all the balls and decide who will attack them, “helps me to concentrate on what I have to do. I think that in the clarity of roles and tasks there is the added value: on certain game or technique schemes, each team has its own system and when consolidated it becomes a strong point, but it must come naturally, without thinking about it too much, and why this happens serves clarity on what you need to do, especially in a complex role like that of the palletr who requires experience and maturity to be expressed to the maximum. Julio “, they call him like this,” he manages to transmit calmly so that we remain lucid in the decisive moments: I think it is very important also in other sectors, when a garment keeps calm and transmits it, even the work climate is more peaceful “.
From the Olympic final of Paris onwards, when Velasco asked the team to play it as a game equal to the others, many, from the captain Anna Danesi to experts like Orro, who have experienced previous seasons, to the new entries such as Stella Nervini, they only repeat that if he tells you, he believes it, not for thaumaturgical powers, but for the enormous experience gained on the world of the world: only those circle of fire without burning you. “We worked a lot on forgetting the error and looking forward to the next point,” said Velasco. “I always say: “Never self -heal. We already have to play against the opponents, playing against ourselves is too much. They are things that in my opinion have given a lot of result. Then there is the opponent, the world does not export Often it does not consider the fact that it is not enough to do all things well, you have to be able to do them better than the others. Winning on the one hand gives awareness, on the other leads to perceive that around many they think that, since we have won a lot, now we go to win the World Cup as if it were easy: The obligation to win is heavy, so I repeat to them that we do not have it. We would like to win so much, we will do our best, but if we feel that the others put us an obligation we must not listen to them ».
To make up for the unprevisory, that in the final VNL there was with the injury to Alice Degradi, we train giving minutes on the field to the reserves, to experience: “Then they go to the field”, said the CT, “is not my merit, and if a girl has these qualities, they emerge”. They certainly emerged in Stella Nervini, 22 years old entered the final instead of degrades: “From one to ten I would have marked zero on the opportunity,” says Stella, “to play a VNL final giving a decisive contribution. In the end I looked around and saw the champions that until just before I saw on TV tell me “good”, call me “star” and I wondered if it was all true. To insert me they helped me, Moki de Gennaro and Myriam Sylla give me a lot of advice. Outside I am a little shy, to make me from Grimaldello was volleyball », the common language that cancels all the distances, including the half century that divides it by the registry from Velasco. “Julio? He is a young man, “he laughs Alessia Orro,” Some days is more in the form of us! “.
Article released on Famiglia Cristiana number 33/2025
