Volleyball has more female participants than any other sport in Italy. In the “distant” past, Italy finished third at the 1989 European Championships and fifth at the 1998 World Championships. 

In the last few seasons, the sport has been growing at a steady pace in Italy, especially at youth level. 

In 2000, the “Azzurre” qualified for the Olympics for the first time and finished ninth. 

In 2002, they placed second at the Montreux Volley Masters and won the World Championship in Germany. 

In 2004, they triumphed at the Montreux Volley Masters, qualified for the Olympics again (finishing fifth) and took second place in the FIVB World Grand Prix. 

They repeated their silver-medal performance in the 2005 Grand Prix and also came second in the European Championship. 

In the last five years, the team has gone from strength to strength, winning the gold medal at the 2007 European Championship and at the FIVB World Cup. 

In 2009, the Italians won the Mediterranean Games, the European Championship and the World Grand Champions Cup. 

They came in third in last year's Grand Prix and fifth in the World Championship in Japan.

Massimo Barbolini became assistant coach to Julio Velasco at Panini Modena before coaching in Agrigento and Modena. In 1993-94, he started working with women's teams in Matera, where he stayed for three seasons before moving to Rome for a year. In 1997-98, he went to Perugia, where he remained until 2007. In his club career, Barbolini has won four Italian Championships, five Italian Cups, two CEV Cups, two Champions Cups and one European Supercup. Since 2006, he has worked with Italy's national team. During this time he has captured two European Championships, the World Cup (2007) and the World Grand Champions Cup (2009).