Bruno Rezende
Bruno Rezende is setter of the Brasil volleyball national team. He was born on July 02, 1986 in Rio de Janeiro. His father Bernandinho is head coach of the Brazil national team.
His mother also played for Brazil in women’s national team at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. His parents get devorced and his father married Fernanda Venturini, giving Bruno half sister named Julia.
In 2003 Bruno joined Brasilian club Unisul and few years later he earned call for the Brazil junior national team. In the same season he won Liga Nacional. He also won the Superliga 05/06 and the Brazilian Championship being the best setter of this competition. Continue Reading
Matey Kaziyski
Matey Kaziyski (202 cm, 93 kg) is Bulgarian volleyball player who was born in Sofia in September 23, 1984. During his career he has brought a large success to Bulgaria national team and to his current club Trentino.
During his Dinamo Moscow stay in 2006/07 he won the bronze medal in Chempions League and was awarded as the best server at Final Four tournament.
At his young age he trained all kind of sports such as football and basketball. Eventually he has chosen volleyball. Continue Reading
Andrea Giani
Andrea Giani (born April 22, 1970 in Naples) is an Italian coach and one of the best Italian volleyball players in the 1990s, winning three World Championships with his national team. He is 196 cm tall.
Even as a kid Andrea showed exceptional physical features. His father, Dario, was a rower who had taken part in the 1964 Summer Olympics for Italy. After having trained with the father, Andrea tried his luck as a football player.But, in 1985 the 14 year old Giani began his career as a volleyball player in the local team of Sabaudia, in the Southern Latium, where he lived. His exceptional qualities attracted attention from the two main volleyball club of Italy of the period: Panini Modena and Santal (later Maxicono) Parma.
Samuele Papi
When Samuele Papi was young, he often went to the sports arena in Falconara, a small citiy on the Adriatic sea which is not far from Ancona, middle Italy. At that time, Zorzi and Renan and other champions were the idols he looked up to. He played volleyball from the early morning until the afternoon and assisted as ball retriever during A-1 matches. Since Samuele is not very tall, nobody ever imagined him becoming a world star one day. But a few years later, at the age of 21, Julio Velasco brought him to the senior’s national team, which was shortly after he had left the team of Falconara from the second Italian league.
Nikola Grbic
If we can accept the fact that the setter is the brain of each volleyball team, then one can rightfully say about Nikola Grbic that he is the game’s ideologist of Serbia & Montenegro. No medal won by the “Blue Team” since 1995 was conquered without Nikola Grbic. The best player of Europe in 1997 grew up in a family already owning a medal, namely from the European Championships in 1975 in Belgrade. His father, Milo, universal player during his entire career, succeeded in pulling both of his sons, Nikola and his older brother Vladimir, into all secrets of volleyball. Even if they had wanted to, the Grbic juniors could not have wished for a better teacher. But the father was demanding.
Giba
This superstar’s full name is Gilberto Amaury de Godoy Filho, but he is much better known as Giba.
Giba is the best known player in one of the greatest volleyball teams ever, Brazilian men’s volleyball team from this decade. Giba may be the best player in Brazilian superb volleyball team and is a superstar among volleyball fans all over the world.
Giba is not only an excellent professional volleyball player, but also has passion, energy and charisma which make him lovable by the volleyball fans – and the power to inspire the whole Brazilian team to play its best.
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Luigi Mastrangelo
Luigi “Gigi” Mastrangelo (born 17 August 1975 in Mottola) is an Italian volleyball player. Standing at 202 cm, he plays as middle hitter/blocker for Stamplast Martina Franca.
His father Pietro always wanted his son to become a policeman, which was the family tradition and would ensure Luigi a regular income at the end of each month. But Luigi Mastrangelo, or better Gigi (now everyone simply calls him Mastro), had other plans.
He liked playing football near his house in Mottola, a little town of 20,000 citizens South of Italy. Being a very good defender and an enthusiastic supporter of Juventus Turin, everybody called him Brio, who is a strong and tall football player. But Gigi Mastrangelo, who chose shirt number 3 following his idol Antonio Cabrini, was growing day by day and found it increasingly hard to move as agile on the football pitch as his close friend Nicola Legrottaglie, who was born in Gioia del Colle. While Nicola continued dribbling the ball, Gigi made a decision and changed to volleyball.
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