Gabi and the Decision to Leave Brazil: Post-Rio 2026 Fear and the Captaincy Shock at VakifBank

Gabi and the Decision to Leave Brazil: Post-Rio 2026 Fear and the Captaincy Shock at VakifBank

By the pool, a confession

The water in the pool reflected the morning light, so still that it seemed nothing was moving beneath the surface. Gabriela Braga Guimaraes, whom the whole volleyball world knows simply as Gabi, sat at the water's edge and recounted the moment that completely threw her off balance. That moment was not tied to any defeat, nor to any injury. It came from a sentence spoken by Giovanni Guidetti, head coach of VakifBank Istanbul, in the first days after she arrived in Turkey ahead of the 2026-2026 season.

He wanted to prepare her to become team captain.

"I was shocked, because I had never seen myself in that position," Gabi recalled.

There were two people in that poolside conversation. The other was Bruno, who shared the same journey with her. Both sat down to talk about the challenging processes they went through when they made the difficult decision to leave Brazil to play overseas, so that they could keep moving forward in their careers. It was a conversation about turning points that had never been drawn on any map.

That seemingly small story is a mirror of the entire journey of one of the best outside hitters of her generation. Behind it lies a series of painful decisions, fears that are hard to name, and a question that countless female athletes around the world still have to face each time a season ends: when are you truly good enough to step outside your safe place?

Brazil: where talent is born, but not always enough to keep it

Brazil is one of the greatest cradles of women's volleyball on the planet. It is the country that produced golden generations, national teams that once stood on the highest podium of the Olympic stage, and a volleyball culture that runs deep into school life from a very early age. But precisely because its domestic strength is so abundant, Brazil's domestic league carries a very particular insular quality: good enough to nurture talent, but not always harsh enough to push an athlete beyond herself.

That is why so many Brazilian stars have chosen to go abroad. They do not leave because they lack opportunities at home. They leave because they need a different tier of competition, a different pressure, a different training system. Turkish volleyball, Italian volleyball, and increasingly Asian leagues, have become familiar destinations for Gabi's generation.

Based on my years of watching international matches, I have noticed an interesting paradox. European leagues attract Brazilian stars with money and prestige, but what truly changes a Brazilian player is the pace of play and the density of matches. At home, an outside hitter can shine thanks to superior athleticism and instinct. In Europe, athleticism and instinct are only the minimum requirement. What remains is the ability to read the game, the ability to adapt, and the mental endurance required by a schedule that does not let you rest.

Gabi understood that earlier than many. But understanding and daring to act are two different things.

Leaving Brazil: a decision with no map

Gabi said she had a plan to play overseas, but it was not easy to figure out whether she was ready or not.

In that sentence lies a truth few fans see. Female athletes are often not equipped with a clear roadmap for going abroad. There is no standard mentoring system, no set of criteria for when one should go, and no thick enough psychological support network to catch them when they land in a foreign country. Every player has to draw her own map.

Gabi had gone through some injuries, and she had doubts about whether she had what it took to play in the world's best leagues. She started thinking seriously about going abroad after the Rio 2026 Olympics, when she was still earning her place with the national team. And she understood something: she needed to be mentally ready, not only as a player but as a person. Perhaps at that point she needed to leave her comfort zone and make some sacrifices to take the next step in her career.

Here, I want to pause. The phrase "leaving your comfort zone" sounds beautiful in speeches. But for a female athlete, it usually means something far more concrete: leaving family, leaving a network of friends, leaving your mother tongue, leaving the eating and living habits that have been attached to your body since childhood. It is a sacrifice that can be measured, not a slogan.

When I first began working in women's volleyball, I was afraid of questions like these. I was afraid because I did not know how to express them fully without turning a person's story into a ready-packaged tragedy. The first questions I once feared have now become the stories I tell to the younger generation.

Rio 2026: the first crack

The Rio 2026 Olympics was a milestone in Gabi's journey, but not in the way the media usually tells it.

She said she started thinking about going abroad after that Olympics, when she was still earning her place with the national team. This is a very important detail. It was the moment when she was at the peak of her domestic career, being recognized, being loved. And precisely then, she felt she needed to leave.

Sports psychology has a concept for this state, but I want to put it in everyday language. When you achieve a big goal, sometimes you realize that goal is no longer enough to fill the emptiness inside you. You need a new challenge, a new name to conquer, a new fear to face.

For Gabi, that fear had a very concrete shape. She was not sure she had what it took to play in the world's best leagues. She had gone through injuries. She wondered whether she was mentally strong enough to live far from home, to play under the pressure of a team where every defeat is dissected, to become a different person in a different environment.

That is a kind of courage I call quiet courage. It does not happen in front of a crowd. It happens in sleepless nights, in solitary training sessions, in phone calls home where the person on the other end cannot fully understand what you are enduring.

Injury and inner fear

Injury is an inseparable part of any elite athlete's career, but for female athletes it carries a special psychological weight.

When Gabi says she had experienced some injuries and had questions about whether she had what it took to play in the best leagues, she is touching something that many female athletes know well but rarely say out loud. An injury does not just take away time. It takes away certainty. It makes you question your body, your future, whether people still believe in you.

Over many years in this profession, I have realized that female athletes often endure injuries more silently than their male counterparts. Not because they are naturally tougher, but because the pressure to prove themselves is heavier on them. They feel they cannot show weakness, because if they do, people will say they are not sturdy enough to compete at the top.

Gabi admitting her doubt is a meaningful act of openness. It shows that even an international star, who has played in the biggest leagues, once struggled with the feeling of not being enough. And that, for the young athletes reading her story, is worth more than any generic encouragement.

VakifBank: when volleyball changes tier

Gabi's first step overseas was a very big one. Ahead of the 2026-2026 season, she decided to sign with VakifBank, one of the strongest teams on the planet, and joined a squad with massive ambitions, where she was regarded as one of their main stars.

Gabi recalled that the scenario she found when she got there changed her mindset, because right from the start it showed her she was getting into a whole other level of volleyball.

This statement contains what I consider the core of understanding the development of elite women's volleyball. VakifBank is not just a strong team. It is a system. There, every training session is designed like a match, every technical detail is dissected frame by frame, and every player must be responsible for a specific part of the shared machine. It is an environment where you cannot hide behind individual talent.

For an outside hitter, what does this mean? It means the ability to receive must be accurate to the centimeter, because the team's attack system is built on the assumption that the first ball will arrive in the right place. It means attacking decisions must be made in an instant, based on reading the opponent's block rather than on inspiration. And it means you must maintain that alertness across dozens of matches in a season, against opponents who have studied you down to your habits.

Gabi admitted the start was truly challenging and demanding. She does not deny the difficulties. She simply points out that those very difficulties shaped a different version of her.

The Turkish league: density and harshness

I want to spend a paragraph on what Gabi calls a different tier of volleyball.

The Turkish league at that time concentrated an unprecedented density of stars. The big clubs did not only compete domestically; they also competed on the European stage. This created a packed schedule, continuous performance pressure, and a demand for professionalization at a high level.

For an outside hitter like Gabi, the challenge was not only in scoring. It was in maintaining performance in both attack and defense, in receiving against powerful serves, in moving without the ball to open space for teammates, and in staying calm at moments when a single point could decide an entire season.

Elite volleyball is a sport of gaps and timing. A good outside hitter is not just someone who hits hard. It is someone who knows when to hit hard, when to place the ball softly, when to hit off the block to win a point, and when to yield to a teammate in a better position. At VakifBank, these decisions are made within a system where everyone understands their role clearly.

Gabi integrated into that system, and she became an indispensable part of it. But to do so, she had to go through a start that was, as she herself admits, full of challenge and demand.

Guidetti and the art of empowerment

Along that journey, Gabi built a great relationship with Guidetti, and she says he was incredibly important to her.

This is the point I want to analyze closely, because it is often told as a touching detail rather than as a coaching strategy. Giovanni Guidetti is not famous only because he won many titles. He is famous for how he builds people. One of the first things he told Gabi was that he wanted to prepare her to be the team captain. And she was shocked, because she had never seen herself in that position.

Giving the captain's armband to a foreign player, newly arrived, who had never held that role, is a highly strategic decision. It is not merely a gesture of encouragement. It is a way to force an athlete to expand her own identity. When you become captain, you are no longer responsible only for your own ball. You are responsible for the breathing of the whole collective. You must learn how to speak, how to listen, how to stand up when the whole team is reeling.

For someone like Gabi, who already carried sensitivity and responsibility within her, becoming captain could be a well-timed push. It forced her to grow faster, to learn a new language that was not only Turkish or English, but the language of leadership.

I have seen women's teams where individual talent was dazzling but there was no spiritual leader, and the result was that they fell apart at decisive moments. Guidetti seems to understand that a strong collective is not built from the best individuals, but from individuals who know how to connect. And to connect, you need someone in the middle, someone who dares to take responsibility.

The captaincy shock and what it reveals

Gabi's shock at hearing the captaincy proposal is a detail worth pausing on, because it says something about how female athletes see themselves.

There is a pattern I have observed in many talented female athletes: they are very hard on themselves, and they often undervalue their leadership role. They can be outstanding players, but when asked about leading others, they hesitate. This does not come from mere lack of confidence. It comes from a culture that still often associates leadership with men, with loud voices, with decisiveness considered masculine.

Gabi grew up in a volleyball culture where humility is praised. She had never seen herself in the captain's position because she had never been given that model. And when Guidetti gave it to her, she was shocked. That shock is precisely the gap between her potential and how she saw herself.

To me, this is one of the most important moments in Gabi's story, because it shows that the development of a female athlete does not happen only on the court. It happens in how they see their place in the world.

There is one thing I want to emphasize as someone who works in women's sports commentary. When we tell the story of a player, we usually focus on the shining moments: the decisive spike, the medal, the moment on the podium. But the true growth of a female athlete often happens in moments no one films: when she hears something she never believed about herself, and decides to believe it.

The Brazil jersey: a childhood dream

Wearing Brazil's jersey was naturally another topic of the conversation, and it led Gabi back to her first impressions when she was called up to play for Brazil's youth national teams, and to the influence the generation that won gold at the Beijing 2026 Olympics had on her career.

To play for the national team, for Gabi, is truly a childhood dream. It brings her back to her youth, because she always loved watching and playing sports, always dreamed of representing Brazil, winning a medal and listening to the national anthem.

She played many sports before volleyball. But when she was first called up to Brazil's youth national team in 2026, and got to be alongside that incredible generation that won the Beijing Olympics, it was a strong sign that she should continue, because she had never been so close to her dream before.

This is a detail that I believe should be placed in a wider frame of Brazilian women's volleyball. The growth of a young talent does not depend only on skill. It depends on whether that talent is placed alongside the right role models, on whether she can see a viable future for herself.

For Gabi, the Beijing 2026 generation was precisely that viable future, embodied by flesh-and-blood people she could touch, observe, and learn from every day.

Saquarema: where a dream has an address

The Saquarema training center is an almost legendary place in Brazilian volleyball. It is where generations of athletes are trained, where young talents are placed alongside established stars, and where the collective memory of Brazilian volleyball is passed from one generation to the next.

When Gabi, then still very young, got to stand alongside the Beijing 2026 generation at Saquarema, what she received was not just a training slot. She received a living role model. She saw before her eyes the people who had turned a dream into a gold medal. And in a sports environment where the growth of female athletes often happens in silence, seeing a future that can be touched is extraordinarily valuable.

I recall 2026, when I had my first assignment at a women's tournament in Japan. I interviewed a young forward after the match, and she told me she played for the fans who had to sit in the farthest rows, the ones without a name. I wrote a long piece about women's fan culture in Japan, but the newsroom only published a small portion, on the grounds that the piece lacked stars. From then on, I understood that stories about role models and people who dare to dream are often cut away because they do not fit the familiar news frame.

But it is precisely those cut-away stories that nurture the next generation. Saquarema, for Gabi, is one of those stories. And when she recounts it years later, from a very distant place, beside a pool in Turkey, she is handing back to the next generation exactly what she once received: a sign that the dream is possible.

Why this story matters for women's volleyball

I work as a women's volleyball commentator in Japan, but I was born in Vietnam. That position gives me a viewpoint both inside and outside, and it taught me one thing: every women's volleyball market has its own cultural and economic conditions, and we cannot impose one place's story onto another.

Brazil has a strong school volleyball tradition. Japan has a corporate league system tightly bound to companies. Turkey has a massive flow of investment capital. Each place creates different opportunities and barriers for female athletes. And when we tell the story of an athlete like Gabi, we must remember that her journey was shaped by the intersection of all these factors.

This means Gabi's story cannot be mechanically copied into another context. A young talent in Vietnam, in Japan, or anywhere, faces its own set of barriers. What can be learned from Gabi is not a formula, but the way she faced her own fear.

During the frozen season of 2026, when the pandemic caused every tournament in Japan to be cancelled for months, I started a podcast called "Voices from the Empty Stands." Each episode lasted about thirty minutes, and I invited the female athletes themselves to talk about how they felt. One athlete cried as she described having to train alone in a small apartment. I did not cut that crying out. The podcast received a large response, and many female players in the domestic league wrote to thank me for letting them be themselves.

From that experience, I developed a habit when writing: I always ask myself, how are the emotions of the people involved expressed in this story? The season froze, but voices never freeze.

The contrarian view: when leaving the comfort zone is not the whole story

I want to offer a view opposite to how this story is usually told.

The common telling goes like this: a talented athlete bravely leaves her comfort zone, faces the challenge, and grows. It is a beautiful story, and it inspires. But it ignores half the truth.

The other half is this: to be able to leave your comfort zone, you need a comfort zone to leave. Gabi could go abroad because she already had a solid foundation in Brazil, a place on the national team, a level of recognition sufficient for a big club like VakifBank to want to sign her. Many other talented female athletes do not have those conditions. They do not lack courage. They lack opportunity.

What does this mean for Gabi's story? It means her story should not be used as a generic piece of advice that says be brave and leave your comfort zone. Her story should be read as a reminder that talent needs a system to be seen. Gabi was seen. Many others are not.

And even after going abroad, her journey still reveals another truth. Her development did not happen solely through personal decision. It happened through a coach who believed in her enough to hand her the captaincy, through a club that built a professional enough environment for her to grow, and through a domestic volleyball scene that equipped her with foundational skills. A personal story always sits within a larger story.

This is why I am careful with success stories told as simple moral lessons. We are easily swept up by the feeling that with enough courage, anyone can do it. But elite sport is an ecosystem, not a contest of will. And the job of a storyteller is to point out both sides of the medal.

Sporting value and commercial value: a gap that must be named

There is another aspect of Gabi's story I want to analyze, related to how we value women's sports.

When Gabi signed with VakifBank, she entered a market where a player's value is measured by many metrics: on-court performance, ability to draw spectators, commercial value, and media potential. For women's volleyball, these metrics often do not align.

An outside hitter can be the best player on the team, but if she does not bring in audiences or does not have commercial appeal, her value in the transfer market can be lower than a player who is technically weaker but more famous on social media. This is a reality that people in my profession face every day.

For Gabi, her story is an example of how sporting value can, in some cases, surpass commercial value. But that does not happen automatically. It happens thanks to a system that knows how to assess ability correctly, and thanks to a coach who can see potential in a player before the market sees it.

I believe this is an important lesson for women's volleyball everywhere. If we measure a player's value only by easily measurable indicators such as follower counts or ticket revenue, we will miss the truly talented. And those missed talents are often the ones without enough resources to promote themselves.

What I learned from the stories that get skipped

Over many years of watching women's volleyball, I learned that the most important stories are often not in the most brightly lit places.

When I watch Gabi play, I often pay attention to details the media rarely mentions: how she moves when she does not have the ball, how she communicates with teammates after a lost point, how she stays calm at the most tense moments. These details do not appear in the stat sheet, but they are what distinguishes a good player from a great one.

And it is precisely those details that the poolside story reveals. When Gabi talks about her fear, about not being sure she had what it took, she is showing us the back side of a medal. She is showing us that greatness is not the absence of fear, but learning to act despite it.

That is why I believe women's volleyball needs more stories like this. Not to glorify an individual, but to show the next generation of female athletes that the road ahead is not flat, and that feeling afraid is normal.

Women's volleyball does not need saving, only someone willing to sit down and listen. When Gabi tells her story, she is doing exactly that: she is sitting down and letting others be heard.

Takeaway

Gabi's story by the pool that day did not end with a medal or a title. It ended with a simple sentence about a childhood dream, about the national anthem, about standing alongside people she once only dared to watch from afar.

But perhaps the most thought-provoking thing lies in between: between a teenage girl in Saquarema and a woman handed the captain's armband in Istanbul, there is a journey in which every step demanded a choice between safety and growth.

When I heard Gabi talk about her fear, I understood that her story is not a story about overcoming fear. It is a story about learning to live with it, and turning it into momentum to keep moving.

Does this still hold true for the next generation of female athletes, who will grow up in a volleyball world different from the one Gabi once entered? That is the question I leave for myself, and for anyone listening."