The year 2025 will be etched into Italy’s sporting memory as the year when Italian volleyball reached the height of its greatness. Both the men’s and women’s teams captured the World Championships, completing a double triumph with no precedent in Italian sports history and few equals anywhere in the world. The heroes of this success are, of course, the athletes themselves - Italy boasts some of the best volleyball players on the planet, and its national leagues are often compared to an “NBA of volleyball.” But behind those champions stand two of the most accomplished coaches the sport has ever seen.
The men’s national team is led by Ferdinando “Fefè” De Giorgi, born in Squinzano, in the Salento area in the Puglia region, in southern Italy. With the World Championship victory in the Philippines this past September, De Giorgi has secured his place among the all-time greats. After winning three World Championships as a player with the famed “Generation of Phenoms” (1990, 1994, 1998), and another title as head coach in 2022, he brought Italy back to the very top in 2025. Five world titles - three on the court, two from the bench - something no other coach in any team sport has ever achieved. His career is woven into the very fabric of Italian volleyball, a golden thread running through decades and generations.
On the women’s side, the head coach is Julio Velasco, born in La Plata, Argentina, to a Peruvian father and an Argentine mother of English descent, later becoming an Italian citizen. Velasco - nicknamed “the philosopher” - is the man who in the 1990s transformed the destiny of Italy’s men’s team, and in recent years has done the same for the women. After guiding the Azzurre to their first-ever Olympic gold medal in volleyball at the Paris 2024 Games, and to Nations League victories in 2024 and 2025, he crowned his run by leading the women to the world title this September. Winning with the men, winning with the women, winning everywhere: Velasco is more than a coach. He is a thinker of the game, a master of mindset, the one who taught entire generations that volleyball is not only about technique, but also about culture, character, and responsibility.
There is also a deeper bond linking these two coaches. Back in the 1990s, when Velasco was building the men’s team into a global powerhouse, De Giorgi was right there on the court, the flawless setter and heartbeat of that squad. Thirty years later, the roles are reversed: Velasco with the women, De Giorgi with the men - both world champions, both symbols of an Italy that refuses to stop winning.
Never has it been truer to say that Italy is the capital of world volleyball. Two World Championships in the same year, combined with Olympic gold in Paris 2024 for the women, form a mosaic no other country can match. It’s more than a sporting triumph - it’s the victory of a movement that has grown, renewed itself, and looked forward without losing sight of its roots.
The year 2025 is not just about medals. It is proof that Italian volleyball has built a winning model, able to span generations and constantly rewrite its own story. De Giorgi and Velasco, the two faces of this epic tale, remind us that sports are not only about points and sets—they are about passion, culture, and identity.
