Italy triumphed with their first-ever Volleyball Nations League title in the 2022 women’s edition and along with the trophy came the Most Valuable Player recognition for their emblematic high scorer Paola Egonu, one of the brightest examples of a brilliant Generation O athlete among the dominating opposites in today’s world of women’s volleyball.
VNL 2023
What's next for VNL 2022 MVP Paola Egonu?
Will we see her at VNL 2023?
Published 08:09, 05 Apr 2023
Egonu was by far the best scorer of the VNL Finals in Ankara with a total of 83 points over the three matches played, 30 clear at the top of the ranking. She was the leading point-maker in each of Italy’s three games in the Turkish capital, contributing a fantastic 36 points to the quarterfinal win over China, 26 to the semifinal victory over Turkiye and another 21 to the triumph over Brazil in the final. The 1.93m-tall opposite also topped the best attackers’ chart on a 47.06% success rate.
Her MVP award was the most recent in a long array of such nominations in Egonu’s career and most likely preceding many others. Her previous MVP honours include those of the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship, the 2015 FIVB Volleyball Girls’ U18 World Championship, the 2021 CEV European Championship, the 2019 and 2021 CEV Champions Leagues and several national competitions in Italy.
Egonu was among the favourites to earn the best player award at the FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship in the Netherlands and Poland in the fall of 2022, but Italy finished “only with a bronze”, so the coveted individual award went to her Generation O archrival Tijana Boskovic, who triumphed as world champions with the national team of Serbia.
Is the 24-year-old star likely to win her next MVP award at the VNL 2023... or maybe sooner than that?
She is certainly in the running for at least three such recognitions as her club season with Turkish powerhouse VakifBank Istanbul is about enter its conclusive stages.
Before Egonu transferred from Italy’s Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano, VakifBank had a glorious 2021-2022 season, mastering a golden quintuple of five trophies out of five competitions. With the powerful Italian striker on coach Giovanni Guidetti’s squad, VakifBank have already failed to defend two of their crowns, first in the Turkish super cup and then at the 2022 Club World Championship. Egonu and her teammates lost the world final to her previous team Imoco and another top-level Generation O star, Sweden’s Isabelle Haak, who played for VakifBank before that and switched clubs with Egonu during the summer, claimed the MVP award again.
The Istanbul powerhouse are still in contention for defending their Champions League title and Paola Egonu has her shot at claiming her third MVP nomination in the prestigious continental competition. They have already advanced to the semifinals. VakifBank have also advanced to the semifinals of the Turkiye Cup. They stand second in the running Turkish league regular season on a 19-3 win-loss record and 56 points, nine points short of Boskovic’s unbeaten Eczacibasi Dynavit Istanbul. Egonu is running second in the most efficient scorers’ ranking too. She has so far produced an average of 5.98 points per set, topped only by Boskovic’s 6.49.
Through all the ups and downs in the past months, Paola has been her usual brilliant self, striking one amazing point after another on the court and making one strong statement after another off the court. In October, disappointed by some fan remarks on social media, she took a stand against racism in her country and said she would take a break from the national team.
However, when she visited her native county with VakifBank to play against Italian teams during club season, she received a warm welcome from the Italian fans. In February, Egonu also had a very positive experience as a co-host at Italy’s iconic Sanremo Festival
“I love Italy, I proudly wear that blue shirt, which for me is the most beautiful in the world, and I have a deep sense of responsibility towards this country, in which I place all my hopes for tomorrow,” Paola said on the Sanremo stage. “I'm the one to whom sport has given so much, but I'm also the one who doesn't believe that defeat is only when you lose a game. When I'm on the pitch and I make too many mistakes, even if we win, it can happen that it feels like a defeat. I play in attack and my goal is to score. Sometimes I succeed, other times I fail and I'm learning to accept the mistake. Criticisms have never been lacking. They are inevitable, but I don't want to play the victim. I learned with difficulty that it's up to us to give them the right weight. In my history as a player, I have in fact lost more finals than I have won. Yet the greatest successes can come from the toughest defeats.”
Could Egonu have changed her mind about playing for Italy this summer...?
- Watch Volleyball Nations League 2023 on VBTV
