Ferdinando De Giorgi, aka 'Fefè', as well as the authentic King Midas of contemporary Italian men's volleyball.
Called to raise the blue fortunes after the Tokyo 2020 flop, in one year he scored a historic double.
First the European Championship won in 2021, now the World Cup, the fourth for Italy and with a very specific common denominator: Fefè.
Yes, because the one on Sunday evening in Katowice is the first won as a coach, exactly 24 years after the last blue success, dated 1998 in Osaka where De Giorgi was there, but as a player.
Same thing in Rio de Jainero in '90 and in Athens in '94.
He who grew up with the generation of phenomena, now cultivates the champions, throwing young people in and making unpopular choices.
Like the disputed one of bringing former captain Ivan Zaytsev to retire in Cavalese in August to communicate the exclusion in favor of two players like Yuri Romanò and Giulio Pinali who, last season, struggled to find space in their Superlega clubs .
Fefè, however, has always believed in it.
Volleyball, De Giorgi: 'It's always sweet to come to the Quirinale'
"We have achieved a historic result - he added - I had won the last title 24 years ago, as a player and winning it back today was like a long hug with a group of guys who believed in the project and spent their time" .
That "We Italy" coined at the European Championships last year "they felt it strongly in Poland" and the wish, addressing the Head of State, seems almost obvious: "I hope to be able to see you again, because going to the Quirinale is always a sweet coming ".
Certainly the visit to Mattarella is becoming a pleasant habit for De Giorgi who has even more taste to win the World Cup as a coach than as a player, he swore while heading with the rest of the blue expedition also from Premier Draghi to Palazzo Chigi.
One thing is certain:
everyone recognizes the coach as one of the architects, if not the absolute protagonist of this victory.
The endorsement towards him is transversal.
Volleyball, Italy world champion: the celebration of the Azzurri
From Malagò who defines Manfredi's move to take De Giorgi "a fantastic intuition" to Mattarella.
"I have seen coaches of other national teams reproach or have imperious attitudes. His tranquility, on the other hand, contributed to the final victory", underlined the President of the Republic.
Now, however, Fefè is missing one last step: Paris 2024. For the moment he is not thinking about it, or perhaps he is pretending not to think about it.
"In the meantime, let's enjoy this World Cup which was great" he told some fans outside the Quirinale, but inevitably the head is now there.
Because his cycle began from the rubble of an Olympics, the Japanese one, and in the next one he could find the perfect closure of a circle that brought Italvolley back to the roof of Europe and then the world.
