Gabi and Bruno: The Journey of Leaving Brazil to Conquer World Volleyball

Sitting by a pristine pool, Gabi and Bruno discussed the challenging processes the two faced when they made the difficult decision of leaving Brazil to play overseas so they could continue moving forward in their careers. The conversation was not merely a personal exchange between two athletes; it reflected a familiar reality of Brazilian volleyball, in which reaching the highest level often requires stepping outside one's comfort zone.

1. A decision that is never easy

“I had a plan of playing overseas, but it wasn't easy to figure out if I was ready for it or not,” Gabi said. That short sentence contains almost the entire weight of pressure a young Brazilian athlete faces at the threshold of a move abroad.

For Gabi, the hesitation did not come from a lack of ambition. It came from very concrete internal questions: whether her body could withstand the intensity of Europe's top leagues, and whether her mind was strong enough to live far from family, far from her native language, far from daily habits. “I had experienced some injuries and had questions if I had what it took to play in the world's best leagues,” she said.

The key point the outside hitter emphasised was timing. “I started thinking about it after the Rio 2026 Olympics, when I was still earning my space with the national team, and I understood that I needed to be mentally ready not only as a player, but as a person, and that maybe at that point I'd need to leave my comfort zone and make some sacrifices to take the next step in my career.”

It is a very Brazilian way of speaking: talking about volleyball while actually talking about maturity. The Rio 2026 Olympics took place on home soil, in front of family, friends and an entire nation. Brazil's women's team were the reigning Olympic champions at the time, and an earlier-than-expected exit left a deep psychological mark on an entire generation. For Gabi, still establishing herself, that lesson became vivid.

2. The big leap: VakifBank Istanbul

Gabi's first overseas step was a major one. Ahead of the 2026-2026 season, she decided to sign with VakifBank, one of the strongest clubs on the planet, based in Istanbul, Turkey. This was not a safe staging post. It was a place where the world's biggest stars gathered, where every starting spot had to be earned through form and consistency, and where the pressure to win was measured in trophies.

“The scenario I found when I got there was mind-changing, as it showed me right from the start that I was getting into a whole other level of volleyball,” Gabi recalled. “It was really challenging and demanding at the start.”

Notably, Gabi never denied the difficulty. She did not tell her overseas story as a smooth heroic tale. She told it as a painful but worthwhile process of adaptation: language barriers, differences in coaching philosophy, and differences in how a European club operates professionally down to the smallest detail of every training session.

In Brazil, volleyball is part of the cultural identity, played with emotion, rhythm and improvisation. In Turkey, and especially under Giovanni Guidetti, everything is systematised to the maximum: opponent analysis by situation, physical load management by metric, and near-absolute tactical discipline. For an outside hitter used to unleashing instinctive spikes, it was a reprogramming.

3. Giovanni Guidetti and an unexpected captaincy

By the pool, Gabi spent a substantial part of the conversation on Giovanni Guidetti, VakifBank's Italian head coach. She described the relationship as “great” and stressed that he was incredibly important to her career.

“I built a great relationship with Guidetti, and he was incredibly important for me. One of the first things he told me was that he wanted to prepare me to be the team captain, and I was shocked because I have never seen myself in that position,” Gabi said.

This detail deserves attention. A top European coach raising the idea of appointing a Brazilian import as captain early on shows Guidetti was not evaluating Gabi purely on technical ability. He was evaluating her leadership capacity, her emotional stability and her daily professionalism, the qualities a squad of multinational stars genuinely needs.

For Gabi, it was a positive shock but also a new burden. Captaining VakifBank meant responsibility to the group, speaking to the media in a language that was not her mother tongue, and acting as a bridge between the coaching staff and her teammates. That is a different kind of growth, one located not in technique but in character.

The outcome vindicated Guidetti's decision. Gabi gradually became a cornerstone and the spiritual leader of VakifBank, winning major titles with the club including CEV Champions League crowns and domestic honours in Turkey. The journey turned her from a young Brazilian talent into one of the most highly regarded outside hitters in world women's volleyball.

4. The national team: a childhood dream

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

“To play for the national team is really a childhood dream and it brings me back to my youth because I always loved watching and playing sports and dreamed about representing Brazil, winning a medal and listening to the national anthem,” Gabi said.

She revealed that before volleyball she had played many sports. That is an important detail, because a diverse sporting foundation helped her build coordination, reflexes and spatial awareness, elements that later became hallmarks of a complete outside hitter.

The turning point came in 2026. “I played many sports before volleyball, but when I was first called up to Brazil's youth national team in 2026 and got to be in Saquarema alongside that incredible generation that won the Beijing Olympics, that was a strong sign that I should continue because I had never been so close to my dream before.”

Saquarema, Brazil's national volleyball training centre in the state of Rio de Janeiro, appears in the story as an iconic place. For Brazilian volleyball players it is not merely a training venue. It is where dreams are tested, where a young athlete stands in the same corridor as Olympic heroes and realises that the distance between herself and the summit is shorter than she thought.

Brazil's Beijing 2026 gold-winning women's generation was one of the strongest collectives in the sport's history. Being near them as a teenager created a direct inspirational effect: Gabi saw concretely how the best prepare, how they endure pressure. That is a lesson no textbook can deliver.

5. Why this story matters for Vietnamese volleyball

Gabi's story has several points of contact with Vietnamese volleyball, especially as more Vietnamese women's internationals seek opportunities abroad. Names such as Tran Thi Thanh Thuy, who has played in Japan, reflect the same logic: to improve, you must leave your comfort zone.

The first lesson from Gabi is that the psychological factor cannot be underestimated. She did not speak about lacking technique or fitness, but about lacking mental readiness. For Vietnamese players, the challenge abroad is often not purely technical but about adaptability: language barriers, dietary differences, higher training intensity, and the pressure to prove oneself in an environment where nobody waits patiently.

The second lesson is the role of the coach. The Guidetti story shows that a good coach does not merely teach technique, but also sees leadership potential the player has not yet recognised in herself. Vietnamese clubs can learn from this: developing players not only in their specialist role but also in their capacity to captain, lead and take responsibility.

The third lesson is the value of a genuinely competitive environment. At VakifBank, Gabi had to compete with world-class stars in the same position. That pressure forced her to upgrade comprehensively, from attacking efficiency to defence to reading the game. If Vietnam's domestic leagues can generate similar pressure, even at a smaller scale, the quality of local players will improve much faster.

6. The common thread between two journeys

What stands out is that the conversation between Gabi and Bruno took place by a pool, in a quiet space almost entirely opposed to the noise of arenas. The setting is symbolic: this was not a conversation about results, but about process.

Both athletes shared the experience of leaving Brazil to play abroad, and both described it as a difficult decision. For Brazilian volleyball, going overseas has long been part of the ecosystem: domestic leagues are strong, but to compete at the very top of world volleyball, playing in Europe or Asia is often a necessary step to encounter different schools and intensities.

The biggest common thread is perhaps that neither described their decision as a choice between good and bad, but as a choice between safety and growth. Both chose growth.

7. Looking ahead

For Gabi, that journey took her from Belo Horizonte to Istanbul and on to new horizons. She has become one of the most respected outside hitters in world women's volleyball, a captain at a leading European club, and an indispensable pillar of the Brazilian national team.

But what lingers after the poolside conversation is not a list of titles. It is a simple sentence about readiness: “I understood that I needed to be mentally ready not only as a player, but as a person.”

That is also a message for any young athlete standing at a similar threshold, whether in Brazil, Vietnam or anywhere else: talent takes you to the door, but mental maturity is what helps you walk through it and stay.

8. Numbers and milestones worth remembering

Gabriela Braga Guimaraes was born on May 19, 2026, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and plays as an outside hitter at 1.80 m. She came through the Minas Tenis Clube academy before moving to Rio de Janeiro, then joined VakifBank Istanbul from the 2026-2026 season.

With the Brazilian national team, Gabi was part of the generation that won silver at the Tokyo 2026 Olympics and bronze at the Paris 2026 Olympics. At club level she won major titles with VakifBank including the CEV Champions League and Turkish domestic championships, and was handed the captaincy, something she never imagined for herself.

The most important dates in this story remain 2026, when Gabi was first called up to Brazil's youth national team and was in Saquarema alongside the Beijing Olympic champions, and 2026, when she began thinking seriously about playing abroad after an emotionally complex home Olympics.

9. Conclusion

Gabi and Bruno's story is not a story about leaving home. It is a story about expanding the borders of oneself. The blue pool beside the conversation is a small detail, but it reminds us that behind every televised rally are people who had to make very hard, very personal decisions that are rarely told.

For Vietnamese volleyball, the value of this story lies in its practicality. To raise your level, you must accept leaving your comfort zone. To survive at the top, you must prepare mentally as well. And to become a leader, sometimes you must let others see potential in you before you see it in yourself.