Young, daughter of immigrants, bisexual, volleyball player by profession, indeed the best female volleyball player Italy has ever had. Paola Egonu is the picture of the Italy that includes, that offers an opportunity to everyone, at least in sports.

And the twenty-two year old from Cittadella, a town of twenty thousand inhabitants in the province of Padua, Veneto, daughter of Nigerian immigrants, seized the opportunity with both hands, becoming at such a young age the brightest star of volleyball. No Italian athlete more than her has ever been so decisive in a volleyball team, or in any other team sport.

We can say without exaggeration that it seems to see the story of Michael Jordan and his Bulls, a winning team thanks to one player, the best ever. Egonu has the same charisma and the impressive ability to fly through the air to dunk the ball in the opponent's half of the court, and she scores an impressive number of points in every match. The 6,2 feet tall opposite hitter is the beacon of her team, as was M.J., and her determination and will to win is equal to that of the immense basketball champion.

In the Italian league, which can be considered one of the best in the world along with that of Turkey, Egonu has achieved a goal that has never been achieved by anyone in other sports. In the 2020-2021 season, with the team from Conegliano, the small town in the Veneto region famous for its Prosecco wine, she won every match in the Italian league, Italian Cup and Italian Supercup, and again she won every match in the Champions League, for a total of 64 wins out of 64 matches! An incredible record, with four trophies won in one season, as never happened before for an Italian volleyball club. And Egonu achieved other records during the season.

In April, in the play off match against Novara, she scored 47 points, surpassing her own record of 46 at only 18 years old. And then in the Champions League final, against Turkish team Valdfbank Istanbul, full of international stars, she crushed her opponents by herself scoring 41 points, a record for a final of the most important European club competition. It was a victory equal to that of David over Goliath, with the team from the small Italian city disintegrating that of the Turkish biggest city. Conegliano, population 35,000, beat Istanbul, population 15,5 million.

But her stellar career didn't start this year, in fact that happened when she was still a little girl. Wherever she played she always and only won, like a predestined of this very popular sport in Italy. When she was only sixteen she moved to Rome, leaving her family and friends behind, to play in the B1 series, an amateur category. In three years she led the club to the top Italian series, winning games with an impressive point-game average. At the age of eighteen she moved to Novara, in Piedmont, winning in two years the Champions League, the Italian Supercup, and twice the Italian Cup, resulting Mvp of the finals. In 2019 she was chosen by Conegliano, and in two years she disintegrated every record of victories. The first year she won the World Club Championship and the Italian Supercup, resulting in both cases Mvp of the competition.

In the last season, as already written, she won all four trophies, also in these cases she was always awarded as Mvp. Egonu has also become a flagship of the Italian National Team, winning at only nineteen years old the silver medal at the World Championships and at twenty the bronze medal at the European Championships. A player who, at only twenty-two years old, has already won so much, but now all of Italy relies on her to realize a forbidden dream, that of winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. In the history of volleyball, Italy has never won an Olympics, both with men and women, and with a super star like Egonu, this time could be the right time.