Not many volleyball players get the chance to have a farewell game at the end of their career.
In my case, I said goodbye to volleyball on 5 May 2017, celebrating my last championship title with Halkbank Ankara in Türkiye and closing a remarkable 22-year professional career, 17 years abroad, across five countries and countless unforgettable moments.
So when Teodor Salparov, a Bulgarian volleyball icon, invited me to Sofia to join an exhibition game alongside some of the greatest players I shared the court with: Serginho, Pascal, Papi, Dante, Volkov and many others, I couldn’t say no.
And then something unexpected happened. For the first time in almost ten years, I felt that old competitive feeling again. That feeling of looking across the net and thinking: “I want to win.” (The body was struggling 🥲)
Many of us hadn’t touched a volleyball seriously for years. But after just a few touches during warm-up, you could see it. The athlete’s class doesn’t disappear.
The body changes.
The years pass.
The career ends.
But something inside you remains.
A movement.
A reaction.
A competitive instinct.
A memory.
And suddenly, the past was standing right there on the court with us.
But this event wasn’t really about competing against former athletes in their 40s, 50s or beyond. Former teammates and former opponents, from different generations and different countries, meeting again through the sport that shaped so much of our lives.
Maybe this is one of the greatest opportunities we have as former athletes: not simply to remember what we achieved, but to use those memories to inspire what comes next.
To connect generations.
To bring experience closer to young athletes.
To keep the stories alive.
And to help make volleyball bigger, stronger and more visible for the next generation.
Thank you, Bulgaria, for bringing many of us back to the court — and, for a few hours, making us feel like athletes again.
Because perhaps we never really stop being athletes.
𝗪𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲.
🏐❤️