Achieving Volleyball Dreams
Insights from Top Coach
Lauren Bertolacci
We had the pleasure of interviewing a prominent figure in volleyball. Lauren Bertolacci, who has been the head coach of the Viteos NUC women's team since 2018, has transformed the club into one of the most successful in the Alpine republic. Since 2022, she has also been leading the Swiss women's national team. She shares their invaluable experiences with young players.
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What skills do you believe are crucial for young players to develop to achieve success?
​The most important skill is mental toughness, which I would define broadly as the ability to override human nature, and has a several aspects to it.
Successful athletes value discipline over motivation. Discipline is in your control, it is showing up everyday, even if you are not motivated. This creates habits and growth that will push you to succeed even on the days everything feels hard.
The best players don’t rely on confidence or feeling good, they focus on getting the job done.
In reality we will not play well every match, and we will not feel our best every match. What is more important is the ability to do your job and to understand that perfect performance is not the goal, winning is the goal. There are many controllable things we can always do that have a strong impact on the game. Attitude, body language, tactical communication between points, energy to our teammates, covering attackers, effort in defence… just to name a few.
The ability to perform under pressure is also critical. The best athletes are able to treat every moment the same. They are prepared, they are not thinking critically in a game, they are in a flow. They do this because they don’t care if they missed 2 attacks, they understand they know what to do on the next one and their mistakes don’t affect their next action.
How do you handle setbacks or failures, and what advice would you offer to young players facing similar challenges?​F
​​I want to continue to do what hasn’t been done, to win on the highest stage and to grow the game and the style of play in women’s volleyball. I want to do this while providing an environment for young women to be safe, physically and mentally healthy, and to develop as humans and players.
I mentioned earlier but I don’t believe in motivation, I believe in discipline. We cannot always love what we do, because every day is not always enjoyable when you are doing hard things. Daily motivation is not a realistic ask of ourselves and it can’t be focussed on or it causes us to abandon our goals too easily.
Discipline means we have a set of standards for ourselves that will help us reach our goals, and we stick to that everyday. Once you understand that, days have meaning even when they don’t have motivation. They key is to hit the focus from “Do I want to do this?”, to “Who do I want to be?”.
What trends or developments in volleyball should young players be aware of to stay competitive?
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I like to look towards the recent gold medalists in Paris. The French mens National Team embodied deep creativity, team work and flow, speed combined an ability to read the game. The Italian Womens National Team showed next level physicality, powerful yet smart serving, innovation of the womens game (for example they ran no slides!), and a deep commitment to a team goal.
Volleyball is evolving, and young players who want to compete at the highest level need to be students of the game. Now we see players having a deep toolbox in all aspects of the game. They vary their serve with hybrids, depths and speeds, they can receive a ball underhand or overhand, they manipulate tempo and spacing in a mesmerising way and they find creative ways to score as well as build their power so they are unstoppable.
If you become a student of the game you watch the best play, you learn how to read the game, you see how the best handle skill and technical situations, how they manage the game mentally.
What specific advice would you give to young athletes aspiring to pursue a professional career in volleyball?
No one can do it for you, you have to do it yourself. If you want something bad enough, why would you ever wait for anyone to do it for you? If you need a coach to understand you perfectly or to motivate you for you to play well, it will be a hard road to the top.
You will encounter a wide variety of environments as a professional. Some of those will provide you with everything you need to succeed. Some of them will be places you need to find solutions for yourself.
Once you develop the habits you need in regards to excellence, you put the responsibility on yourself and you will be able to succeed in any environment, which is the key to a long professional career. Those habits can be
anything from warming up, preparing your body in the weight room, all the way to your reflection post game, watching video or making tactical adjustments.
Understand that winning is a habit, and it comes from being competitive. Practise being competitive whenever you get a chance. If you compete at your highest level in every exercise, 6 on 6 practise and game that mentality becomes automatic. Professional sports is always guided by winning, and winning is not always in your control, but acting like a winner is.
Where do you see Swiss volleyball in the coming years, and what role do young players play in this vision?
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I have been in Switzerland for over 10 years now, and I believe we are in prime time with the current talent pool as well as the future generation that is available to us. I feel a mentality shift towards Volleyball being a more important part of young players lives, with higher goals and commitments.
Swiss volleyball is on the rise, but what got us here won’t get us there. To take the next step we need to keep challenging ourselves to get our of our box, playing with a strong identity, and to develop a culture where competition is non negotiable.
We have no future in the sport without young players, and we can see in the Final 4 how deep the passion for volleyball runs. The young players of today have the chance to define what Swiss Volleyball will look like in the years to come. That is a great responsibility and one of the most fulfilling things we can do in our sport. I trust you all to show us who we can be and how far we can go.
​Failure is the most direct way to learn. You learn more when you lose than when you win, as you are confronted with what you lack and it’s very painful. We were undefeated in season 21/22 and then we lost in a Cup Semi Final, it was heart breaking. Since then I put on our coaches white board, “Analyse every win like a loss”. This ability to self reflect as an athlete is key to growth in hard times. Watch video, understand your impact on the game, where you could improve in both controllable aspects and skills. If we are able to have self awareness and self responsibility, through failures we are shown exactly what we need to do in order to take the next step. Treat it with objectivity, don’t get angry, get better.
​Setbacks such as injuries can be devastating to a player, but I have found working with players who have recovered from major injuries they often have a great perspective on their career, they appreciate things deeper and they work in a more disciplined manner.
Not everyone needs these setback to learn important values, but there are always huge learning moments that come from the darkest times.
How do you assist your players in setting realistic and challenging goals? What tips do you have for achieving these goals?
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My belief, and what is on our whiteboard daily is Dream Big. I believe in setting goals that are a little out of reach because when you reach for the highest of goals, you set standards for yourself and your team that will take you to your best. That best might be the goal you set, or it might not be, but if you work in this manner it brings you great satisfaction and is always a journey well led. I would rather reach for a high goal and fail, than never reach my potential.
Goals are the Dream, but they are key to guide the standards we set for ourselves. These standards are what I advise players to develop. How do you warm up? How do you prepare a game? How much video are you watching of yourself and great players? How much energy do you give your teammates in a match? How honest are you to yourself in your self reflection post practise/ games? These standards are the key, they are what are controllable and what you can do every single day, and are the only way to reach your dreams.
What personally motivates you in your sport, and how can young athletes maintain their own motivation?​​
