The impact of Paola Egonu on Italian volleyball

@vincenzo #PaolaEgonu Paola Ogechi Egonu made her debut in Serie A1 in the 2015/2016 season, at just 16 years old. Since then, Italian volleyball has never been the same. Curiously, in that year (December 1, 2015) our community was born: Volleyball Problems. We therefore had the opportunity to witness his parable from a position of privilege. We have often heard of her as the best volleyball player in the world. Is she really like that? Difficult to say, as volleyball is a sport in which each role is fundamental for the success of the others. However, there is a way to quantify its impact: it's the numbers. The data and the statistics available allow us to explain even to those who are not expert in volleyball what it means to really make a difference. Let's start here. Paola Egonu was born in 1998, today she is 23 years old and she is 1.93 meters tall. According to Wikipedia, she touches 3 meters and 44 centimeters in attack, with a run-up, and 3 meters and 21 on the wall, without a run-up (the women's net, to understand, is 2 and 24; the male one 2 and 43). In the early years of Club Italia, which brings together the best young promises of the national team, you also played as a spiker in place 4, with reception duties. Then her coaches preferred to let her focus on attacking. And they were right.

Points scored

Let's start by saying that Paola Egonu is an opposite: she is the main offensive terminal of the team, attacking both in the first and in the second line. It is therefore normal that you often find yourself called into question. That said, her point volume has always been monstrous. On the third day of the 2016/2017 season, Paola Egonu scores 46 points against Florence. It's a record: the highest number of points ever achieved in a single match, in the history of the Italian Serie A women's championship. This record has meanwhile been broken. From who? From herself. In a much, much more important match: 47 points in Game 1 of the 2019/2020 Scudetto Final against Novara. Incredible performance, but not the result of chance. The girl has in fact grounded 45 balls even in the semifinal of the 2018 world cup against China. 40 in the final of the CEV Champions League 2020 then won against Vakifbank in Istanbul. In all her years in Serie A1 Paola has signed 3368 points of which 2898 in attack, 236 in batting, 234 on the block. Not to mention the Coppa Italia and Superoppa matches. She was top scorer of the championship in 2016/2017 (at 18) and in 2018/2019. She reached her peak in her two years in Novara, where she found herself attacking a truly exorbitant amount of balls (over a thousand per season).

Positivity in attack

«Yes, but - they might tell you - it's easy to score a lot of points when all the balls are lifted. And then Paola makes many mistakes ». True. However, there is one fact that more than any other makes Egonu's impact impressive. The percentage of positivity in attack. That is the number of points in relation to the number of balls attacked. In the last two seasons he has attacked with 59% and 54%. In practice, more than one ball in every two that has been lifted has become a point. These are impressive percentages, which usually only the central players (who often attack “perfect” lifts) know how to keep. To understand, among her peers, the second in the ranking of positivity was the Polish Magdalena Stysiak with about 42%. Over 12 percentage points less. Paola Egonu's percentages have steadily increased, year after year. In particular with her passage to the Imoco Conegliano, where she attacks fewer but more incisive balls, served by the wonderful hands of the Polish player Asia Wolosz. In the current season alone, she dropped below 50%: a complicated and relentless year, which passed through the Olympics and European Championships. Although subdued, the rest of her, however, remains the best percentage among the high ball spikers of the championship.

The numbers of Paola

Walls suffered I

in the 2018/2019 season Paola Egonu suffered 66 blocks from her opponents. In the following championship, with the transfer to Imoco Conegliano, she went on to only 8 walls suffered. It is true, that year was interrupted by the pandemic in the spring and overall less was played; but there is still a datum to make the jaw drop: only 8 point walls suffered out of 412 attacks and 224 points made. A number that gives the measure of how extraterrestrial this athlete is who, simply, travels too much higher than most of her opponents. 

Ace 

Finally, let's not forget that Paola Egonu is a deadly weapon even in service. The joke of her jump spin of her (that is with the ball that rotates in flight, unlike the jump float that remains motionless in the air) is feared by the receivers. Paola never ended the year with the highest number of direct serve points, such as American setter Micha Hancock; but if you add up the last 6 and a half seasons of the women's A1 series, or from her debut, she is the undisputed leader of the aces. To date there are 206. 

Titles 

Trophies are not everything, we agree, but they still say a lot about the value of an athlete. At 23 and with six and a half seasons under her belt, Paola Egonu has already raised all the club titles that can be won in Italy:

An Italian championship;  5 Italian Cups; 4 Super Cups ; a Club World Cup; two CEV Champions League with the shirt of two different teams .

In almost all competitions she has been named MVP (Most Valuable Player). 

Her Imoco Conegliano has also surpassed the record of the highest number of consecutive victories: 76 games, between Italian and international competitions, without ever losing.