Guest of an equestrian event, the national coach spoke about Italrugby and the next technical objectives
Gonzalo Quesada – ph. Sebastiano Pessina
Gonzalo Quesada has never hidden his passion for polo. The Azzurri coach regularly practices this discipline which is played on horseback in 4 against 4 players equipped with bamboo cues, with the aim of sending a ball through two posts.
Polo is a sport with a great tradition in Argentina and Quesada, a great enthusiast, was invited to the Italia Polo Challenge tournament in Rome, where he made statements to the newspaper Tuttosport on his favorite equestrian sport, but also and above all on the Italian national team.
“My father played polo. We had a family ground where we played as children,” began the Argentine coach, speaking about his experience, which he then had to interrupt as soon as he began his professional journey with the oval ball.
“As soon as I stopped playing rugby I started again. The sport of my life is rugby. Polo is a parallel passion, I love it and it’s another reason to spend time with my friends.”
The contact between Gonzalo Quesada and the Italian polo environment is recent.
“I have some friends in common with Stefano Giansanti (respectively creator of Italia Polo Challenge and captain of the
Italian national team). They put us in contact as soon as I arrived in Italy. One day I realized that the Roma Polo Club was in front of our centre. So I wrote to Stefano: ‘Listen, we’re here with the national team, if you want I’ll come and drink a coffee’. We ended up having lunch together. A few days later I had an idea: ‘Stefano, what if we did an Asado with the whole team at your place?’. I took the national team to the Polo Club and we all ate together.”
The feeling with other sports and the focus on Italy’s results
Gonzalo Quesada explained in a previous interview that he has many transversal interests, mainly related to the world of sport and coaching. Words confirmed in the statements released to Tuttosport.
Read also: Italy: the portrait of Gonzalo Quesada, between qualifications, podcasts and international friendships
“I like soccer. As soon as I arrived in Milan I met Javier Zanetti. He invited me to dinner at his restaurant, then to the Inter headquarters where they gave me a shirt. I also saw Bologna, and I would like to go and watch the basketball playoffs. In the past I also followed skiing a lot.”
However, the focus is mainly on the international activity of Italian rugby. Arriving in November 2023, Quesada in just a few months led the national team to play the best Six Nations ever: three useful results in five games, two consecutive victories against Scotland and Wales to close a historic journey.
“I immediately tried to understand the mentality of this national team, and I found highly trained people who were already working very well. I’m fortunate to have a group of great players and leaders. Goals for the future? Results are what we aim for, but to achieve them we need to start from all the other aspects. It’s true that we’ve improved a lot, but we still have many areas to improve in the game. Our focus will be on improving in all these things, then the results will arrive, even if it will be difficult to confirm what we have already done.”
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