Coach Giovanni Guidetti: The Leader Of 2 Bands

Ace & Tell With Coach Giovanni Guidetti: The Leader Of 2 Bands.

It’s such an honor to be given the chance to interview one of my favorite coaches and he is none other than Giovanni Guidetti.

Coach Gio has been coaching Germany’s women’s national team since 2006. He is also the coach one of the most successful club teams of all time, Turkey’s Vakifbank, since 2008.

Career Highlights:

2013 European League Gold Medal
2011 European Championship Silver Medal
2009 European Championship Silver Medal
2009 FIVB World Grand Prix Bronze Medal
2012/2013 CEV Champions League Gold Medal
2010/2011 CEV Champions League Gold Medal

Despite a very schedule with the national team, the 41 year old who married Turkish middle blocker Bahar Toksoy last year still found time to answer these questions…

Q: What are your goals for this year with team Germany?

We wanna use the Grand Prix preparation to make a good World Championship, try to be in the final 6 in Milan and try all that we can to win a medal! We know that is very tough but we know we can do it ! We just have to play our best volleyball, and for this we have to improve a lot here in the Grand Prix!

Q: The most important tourney for this year is the upcoming world champs, what should team Germany do to reach the medal podium?

Play good volleyball and fight with an incredible spirit, that is the power of german team! We know we don’t have the physical power of many teams, and also we don’t have the technique skills of other many teams.

Q: Europe is no doubt the toughest continent when it comes to volleyball. Belgium is a team on the rise plus Croatia and Czech Rep. Russia, Serbia, turkey and Italia always maintain their presence in terms of winning medals, what kind of physical and psychological preparation do you have for Germany with the 2016 Olympics being 2 years away?

Qualifying for the Olympic is always very very complicated for European Teams, very very difficult. Teams like USA and Brasil they are using 3 years to build a team for Olympic while all European Teams are trying to not lose any FIVB points to have more chances in the end to qualify. It is a completely a different world for European Teams. Like Germany we know our position, we know that Russia and Italy are very far in the ranking and we know that we have to use all the chances to keep our ranking. It will be a hard job but we wanna do all what we can and even more to reach that goal.

Q: What’s the best part of your job?

Making the player better. Everybody thinks a good coach is the one that wins but I disagree. A good coach is the one who can teach everyday something new to all their players and make them better every day.

Q: What’s the most challenging part of your job?

Fighting the comfort zone for me and for the players. To become better we should do something more and something better than the rest.

Q: What has been the biggest mistake you’ve done as a coach and what did you do to correct it?

I did many and I’m doing many day by day so I try to become better and correct myself day by day. I think at the beginning of my career I was too emotional, too angry and I was always exaggerating reactions. I tried to change that (also thanks to a sport psychologist) and try to fight with myself every single day on how to communicate better with my players and not to get mad at any of them.

Q: You’ve publicly mentioned that you’ve never seen a player like Kim Yeon Koung. What makes Kim the best player in the world right now?

She scores like a diagonal, she receives, digs like a libero, she serves like a machine, she blocks like a middle blocker and what’s more important is that she gives incredible energy to her teammates. She is really something extraordinary.

Q: American player Logan Tom visited and trained with your team before the Grand Prix. how did Logan’s presence help your team?

It was an amazing experience. She spent 3 days with our young team practicing and teaching them lots of things. She was the first one to fall down for a ball and she always puts herself at the same level of those young players. After the session, she didn’t even want to hear “thank yous” from everyone. Amazing example coming from an amazing player and person.

Q: You are still coaching one of the best club teams in the world, what’s the difference between the team this season and last season?

Many differences. Me and club thought was time to change something. We won all what a club can win and we wanna keep going winning.

I like my team this year more than last year. I think we have the same power in attack but at same time we can play also quicker.

Q: What makes the current Vakifbank squad special?

A great mix between experienced and young players, a great mix between players who already won a lot and players who are starving for victories. I love that mix.

Q: Do you think modern volleyball is stronger than ever before? Why or why not?

Modern volleyball is stronger and much quicker. Speed (quickness in offense) in modern volleyball remains as the biggest change I have ever seen. Modern volleyball is 3 times quicker than 20 years ago.

Q: As a coach, you travel a lot. What are the things you need to have in your luggage?

My U2 music, my DVD TV series collections, my staff to do sport myself wherever I am, my 3 Iphonea, 1 Ipod, 1 Mac air, 1 Mac book, 1 mini Ipad , my notebook where I write all my volleyball training day.

Q: How is it competing against your wife? Do you and Bahar (Turkish middle blocker) talk about work at home?

My life is volleyball, Bahar’s life is volleyball and we sometimes talk about volleyball at home. Thank god we have our 2 dogs Chucky and Whiksy to keep us busy which is something far from volleyball.

Q: How’s married life in general?

Pretty cool! I’m very happy! I’m a very lucky man! It is magic! It’s like we are building 2 amazing lives as one!

Q: If you can have 3 wishes what would they be?

1. Bring Germany to the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.
2. Win the next 10 Champions League with Vakifbank.
3. A happy family with Bahar and my future kids.

Q: What’s your message to your fans and fans of Germany and Vakifbank?

To the fans of Germany, we want to use all the matches of Grand Prix to become better and hopefully to reach a medal in World Championship!

To the fans of Vakifbank, I promise that the team and I are still very hungry for victories and we want to keep winning.

Q: Giovanni Guidetti is…

A happy man who who tries to make other people around me feel happy as well and I am a coach who always tries to be a better coach.

*This interview was conducted during the 2014 FIVB World Grand Prix. The tournament has ended and Germany finished 11th.

(images: FIVB/ cev.lu)

This article originally appears in Danish on page 73 the Danish Volleyball Magazine August 2014 issue.