20 Mar 2023
The Technical Director of the Italian Volleyball National Teams, Julio Velasco, hosted a Master Class for Aspire Academy coaches to highlight the benefits of learning from different sports.
Mr. Velasco was paying a two-day visit to Aspire Academy through its Aspire in the World Fellows initiative.
As well as the Master Class he spent time watching training sessions, touring the academy’s facilities and meeting coaching staff.
His visit follows his contribution to Aspire’s series of “15 Minutes In Depth" videos, which is aimed at widening knowledge by hearing from world-class experts in a variety of sports.
Mr. Velasco’s Master Class offered his thoughts based on his experiences coaching several volleyball clubs as well as the national teams Argentina, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic and Iran.
The Argentine-born coach was in charge of Italy between 1989 and 1996 during which time he won an Olympic silver medal, 2 World Championships, a World Cup, 5 World League titles and 3 European Championships.
He has also enjoyed success with Iran, who he led to two Asian Championships.
Away from volleyball he has also worked in football with Italian giants Lazio and Inter Milan.
Mr. Velasco explained that sharing ideas with coaches from different sports is something that he started early in his career when he was working in Argentina.
“In Argentina, we have the clubs that have all the sports, football, basketball, volleyball, handball, so we used to have dinner, take a coffee and talking with others was a very important thing,” he said.
“I had studied physical education and after that the experience of discussing, talking to and listening to the very big coaches at club as I trained junior teams, meant I learned so much.”
He pointed out that the idea of improving teamwork applies to all team sports.
“We need to have a theory for team sports so it's important we need to continue to exchange concepts and experience,” he added.
“I think it is so interesting. I read and listen more from other sports than from volleyball. We know each other (in volleyball), I know how they are doing things so from other sports there are a lot of experiences to make use of.”
Mr. Velasco also outlined a few ideas that can apply to all team sports.
“No matter the sport the players themselves must be involved in solving any problems – a team can exist without a coach but not the other way around,” he pointed out.
“When it comes to solving those issues, you need to prioritize which solutions will have the biggest impact.
“There is no point in trying to implement lots of ideas to solve problems as it can cause further confusion whereas a single solution is easier to change.”