How the ‘here and now’ mentality helped Italy claim their first Olympic gold

Even though their performances and their gold medal-winning campaign at the South Paris Arena 1 didn’t indicate that, the months leading into the Paris 2024 Games were a whirlwind for Italy’s women’s national team.

After not qualifying for the Games during last year’s Volleyball Olympic Qualifier, the Europeans faced months of pressure and uncertainty, which culminated with the choice of veteran coach Julio Velasco to lead the team in what would be a challenging season for them.

In just a few months, the coach helped the team achieve all of their goals and then some more, qualifying Italy for Paris 2024, leading the team to take gold at the Volleyball Nations League, pushing them to the top of the FIVB World Ranking and securing the first Olympic gold medal in Italian volleyball history.

The strategy used by the Argentinean-born Velasco to mentally strengthen a team coming from a frustrating season and facing severe pressure relied on two simple words.

“In every match, we kept thinking ‘here and now,’” outside hitter Caterina Bosetti reflected. “This is Julio’s life motto and he brought it to the team, alongside a lot of other things which helped us a lot. We just tried to think about that one moment, not before or after. We wanted to enjoy every moment and not think about anything else. We’re a very emotional team and that helped us remain calm.”

The ’here and now’ (or ‘Qui e Ora’, in Italian) motto was brought up by several players in the squad during the team’s formidable campaign of six victories and just one set lost as one of the reasons for their success in Paris, but according to Velasco, the benefits of this mindset extend well beyond volleyball.

“This is kind of a life philosophy to me,” the coach elaborated. “I feel that we should always think about what we have and not about what we don’t have. What’s in the past is in the past and we don’t know what the future will be, so why not focus on the present? The key is to take one point at a time, regardless of what happened on the previous one or what’s going to happen on the next, but this goes beyond volleyball.”

Understanding and adopting that mentality over the last few months has made of Italy a much stronger team, but this was just one of the many positives Velasco was able to bring to the team in just over four months of work.

A head coach for the last 45 years with Olympic medals and world titles in his resume, the 72-year-old veteran set up a stellar coaching staff having Massimo Barbolini and Lorenzo Bernardi as his assistants and brought the peace of mind the team needed to reach its full potential in 2024.

“This mentality made our group stronger in every situation,” middle blocker Sarah Fahr said after the gold medal match. “Because of it, we were able to help each other and really work as a team. Julio was able to bring some calm to our locker room. We had a lot of negative things said about us and we weren’t happy with how things were going, so it was important to have someone like him to guide us, but also let us free to express ourselves.”

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