Great Captain Vecchi

“I ran out of available promotions” he said smiling immediately after the match in Siena, on a now historic 25 April 2024 which marked Grottazzolina’s first and so far only ascent to the Olympus of volleyball. And in fact it is exactly like this: Riccardo Vecchi, captain and flag of the Yuasa Battery, wearing the M&G Scuola Pallavolo shirt, started from minivolley and arrived up there where everyone dreams, in the Super League. An incredible story that of the twenty-eight year old from Fermo, born in Montappone to father Giovanni and mother Bruna and raised, sportingly and beyond, in the gyms of Montegiorgio and Grottazzolina. A story to tell. Riccardo’s passion for volleyball was born since he was a child; a passion shared with his younger brother Edoardo, with whom he also shared some stages of his career. A career whose rise has been truly vertical, a climb, better said. “Riccardino” is the nickname with which he gradually became known in the world of volleyball, due to his stature but also due to his frail build in his first years as a member of the first team. A little when he made his debut in B2 as a libero, yet a few exchanges were enough to understand that he was predestined, a pure talent. And the rest of his volleyball life has amply demonstrated this: Serie D and Serie C, when he was not even sixteen years old. Then the national spotlight, in Serie B2 and B1, up to the much desired and dreamed of Serie A. His powerful jumping skills, combined with a refined technique, allowed him to more than make up for his 185 centimeters in height, in defiance of those who claim that in modern volleyball you can’t carve out space if you don’t reach two metres. Self-denial, seriousness, passion and respect, these are the human qualities which, together with the technical ones, have led Vecchi to be a real “pillar” in M&G Volleyball School, both as an athlete and as a coach of the youth sector: no one better than him , in fact, can transmit to young people the principles that led a normal provincial boy to become a champion of Italian volleyball.