Julio Velasco (born 9 February 1952) is an Argentine former professional volleyball player and coach. He obtained Italian citizenship in 1992. Velasco was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2005. [1] He is the head coach of the Italy women's national volleyball team, which he led to the gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. [2]
Julio Velasco began playing volleyball at the age of 15 for National University of La Plata Club.
Velasco became an assistant coach on the Argentina national men's team from 1981 to 1983.
In 1983, he was invited to coach for Tre Valli Jesi in Italy, where he stayed until 1985. He coached at Panini Modena from 1985 to 1989, leading them to four Italian national championships in 1986–1989.
In 1989, he was appointed head coach of the Italy men's national team, leading them to unprecedented successes. His first trophy with the Italian team was at the 1989 Men's European Volleyball Championship in Sweden, where they topped their preliminary group with only one loss and went through the knockout stage up to the final where they beat 3–1 the host side [3] to win their first ever official tournament.
But it was in 1990 that Velasco helped Italy to reach the top the world, leading them to win the World Championship in Brazil: in the knockout stage Italy beat Argentina 3–0 in the quarterfinals, the host Brazil 3–2 in the semifinals and eventually Cuba 3–1 in the championship final to win their first ever title as world champions. [4]
During his tenure as Italy's coach, Velasco won two more European Championships, another World Championship and five World Leagues, in addition to other minor trophies like the FIVB World Grand Champions Cup, Mediterranean Games, FIVB World Cup and World Super Challenge. Velasco also took the Italian men's team to win its first silver medal history FIPAV in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
After the 1996 Summer Olympics, where the Italians won silver, he switched to the Italy women's team, from 1996 to 1997, coaching them to a gold medal at the Mediterranean Games. He coached the Czech Republic men's national team in 2001. He returned to Italy to coach the Copra Piacenza club in 2002. In 2008, he was selected to coach the Spain men's national team, winning the 2009 European Volleyball League with them. In 2011, Velasco was signed as the head coach of the Iran men's national team. He became coach of the Argentina men's national team before his contract with the Iranian national team expired on 1 March 2014, after winning two Asian Championships. This change of teams was due to the request of the people and the president of Argentina and was approved by the Iranian volleyball confederation because of Iranians' respect for their coach. [5] He led the Argentine team to win the 2015 Pan American Games. Velasco was appointed head coach of Modena Volley for the 2018/2019 season. [6]
In 2024, he was formally appointed head coach of the Italy women's national volleyball team, with the goal of guiding them to the 2024 Summer Olympics.
During the 1998–99 season, Velasco was General Director of UEFA Cup Winner's Cup winner S.S. Lazio, and in 2000, he moved to Massimo Moratti's Inter Milan.
Ferro:
Modena:
Italy men's national team:
Italy women's national team
Spain men's national team
Iran men's national team
Argentina men's national team
President of Italy: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic: 2019Velasco was a philosophy student and a maoist militant in his university days, which caused him to be expelled by the National University of La Plata board in 1974. After the 1976 Argentine coup d'état he had to live in semi-clandestinity because of his previous political involvement, a situation that compelled him to move to Buenos Aires where he got his first volleyball coaching job. [8] He has discussed coaching with football mastermind Pep Guardiola multiple times. When he lived in Italy, Guardiola once travelled hundreds of kilometres so that he could meet Argentine volleyball coach Julio Velasco personally, simply because he had seen him in a TV interview and wanted to learn from him. [9]
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