Volleyball Bundesliga team BR Volleys has found a new head coach: The Italian Andrea Anastasi will take over the position from the coming 2026/27 season.
Volleyball Bundesliga team BR volleys has found its new head coach: The Italian Andrea Anastasi will take over the position from the coming 2026/27 season. The series champion from Berlin announced this on Tuesday morning.
Fourth coach since January
The 65-year-old Italian follows on the volleys Interim coach Markus Steuerwaldwhich brought the Berliners to theirs in May tenth German championship title in a row had led. April was head coach Alexandre Leal resigned with immediate effect “for urgent family reasons”. Leal was also only in office for a short time: it was only in January that the volleys – in response to a disappointing start to the season – separated from Joel Banks. Banks had coached the BR Volleys since 2023.
Olympic bronze with Italy and three European Championship titles
With the signing of Anastasis, continuity should now return to the Berlin coaching position. The former Italian international most recently coached the Italian first division club Pallavolo Piacenza from 2023 to 2025.
He then took a break during which he received offers from several clubs, all of which he rejected. “I wanted to take on a good project,” Anastasi said at his first press conference at the BR Volleys on Tuesday. After the offer came from manager Kaweh Niroomand and the invitation for a personal interview in Berlin, the decision was easy for him, said the new coach.
In addition to several club positions in Italy and Poland, Anastasi previously worked as a national coach for various associations: with the Italian selection he won the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 and the European Championships in 1999 and 2003. As head coach of the Spanish national team, he won another European Championship title in 2007.
Niroomand: “Guardiola of volleyball”
According to Volleys managing director Kaweh Niroomand, the task for the Italian is clear: win the title. “The commitment is also a signal to the competition,” said Niroomand. The manager described Anastasi as the “Guardiola of volleyball” and emphasized: “We have rarely had such a big change. I wanted to bring the number one on the market to Berlin.”
Broadcast: rbb|24, June 9th, 2026, 11:30 a.m
Audio: rbb|24, June 9th, 2026, Jens-Christian Gußmann
