Alberto Giuliani to head Türkiye’s men

Gepubliceerd 02:46, 04 feb 2023

Shortly after the Turkish volleyball federation hired Daniele Santarelli to lead their women’s national team, they announced another Italian, Alberto Giuliani, as the new head coach of the country’s men’s national team.

Giuliani replaces Nedim Ozbey, under whose supervision Türkiye finished 11th at last year’s FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship, after taking Volleyball Challenger Cup silver, just short of qualifying for the Volleyball Nations League.

Under the new Italian coach, the Turkish team, currently number 14 in the FIVB World Ranking, will aim at winning this year’s Volleyball Challenger Cup and earning a promotion to next year’s VNL. In 2023, they will also take part in the first round of Olympic qualifiers on the road to Paris 2024.

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Türkiye Voleybol Federasyonu (@tvforgtr)

58-year-old Giuliani will return to Türkiye after coaching the club team of Halkbank Ankara and winning the Turkish Super Cup back in 2018-2019. It was the first foreign club of his coaching career. He had been coaching Italian club teams since the mid 1990s. He won the CEV Cup and his first national championship title at the helm of Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo in 2010, following up with the Italy Cup and the Italian Super Cup crowns in 2010-2011. Giuliani then took over Cucine Lube Banca Marche Macerata to add three more domestic trophies to his collection. After Halkbank, he headed Poland’s Asseco Resovia Rzeszow. Since 2021-2022, he has been working at Greece’s Olympiacos Piraeus.

“Back to Türkiye after a few years, but this time with the great honour of training the national team. Thanks to the president and the entire federation for giving me this great opportunity!” Alberto Giuliani, head coach of Turkish men’s national team

Giuliani coached two national teams previously in his career, Slovakia from 2015 to 2016, and Slovenia from 2019 to 2021. He steered the Slovenians to Volleyball Challenger Cup gold in 2019 and a spot in the VNL, where they reached the semifinals at their debut in 2021. Under Giuliani’s mentorship, Slovenia also won back-to-back silver medals at the CEV European Championships in 2019 and 2021.