One won it, the other sacrificed it. The VNL in the Olympic year 2024 is simply a transitional stage in view of the big target, the Olympic tournament in Paris that everyone is definitely aiming for. Julio Velasco used the final eight of the traveling tournament as a test bench and also as a fundamental step to restore confidence to a team that absolutely needed it, Fefè De Giorgi didn’t need all this and has favored rest for a good part of the group that will go to play the Five Rings tournament.
Assuming that both Italian national teams, in May, were not qualified for the Games and therefore they needed to play a good Nations League to avoid negative surprises, the choice of the two technical staffs is shareable on both sides of the coin.
Velasco has chosen to immediately grant the deserved rest to the players who until a week before were busy playing in the Champions League (the final was between Conegliano and Milan with many Italian women on the field) and, having overcome the obstacle of the first week of matches in the VNL with the opening defeat against Poland but also the unexpected and exhilarating victory against the hosts Turkey, the group of starters was found available until the final, at the end of which all the Italian women were able to complete their rest period, given that the final eight was played a week earlier than the men’s.
De Giorgi, on the other hand, chose the opposite path. From the very beginning, Italy was expected to play important matches in terms of qualification and, compared to the women, the advantage it had over its pursuers in the ranking was slightly smaller. It was important to win immediately and the Azzurri, despite not having a period of rest after club commitments, responded positively. winning seven of the first eight games played in the VNL and achieving the main objective, the qualification for Paris 2024, well in advance. At that point the main need was to rest the starting group and the choice is not questionable because the rest phase is part of the preparation.
Only Sbertoli, who had been sidelined for over a month before the Champions League final due to injury, took part in the last slot of matches and the final eight, in which the so-called second-string Italy scared France, who then won the VNL. The hope is that they were both right, the certainty is that every choice was made with great attention to the physical needs of the athletes.
