Volleyball Enrica’s record match: subnet in front of over 90,000 people

“I can’t find the words to describe what I felt. Everything still feels like a dream to me.” Erica Fava doesn’t want to wake up, not even in front of the din of the 92,003 spectators at the Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, who followed the NCAA match between the hosts of the Nebraska Cornhuskers and her Omaha Mavericks. The volleyball player from Piacenza was also on the field in the record match, which marked the most watched event in the history of women’s sport, beating football and the previous record of Barcelona, ​​capable of registering 91,648 spectators at the Camp Nou in the Champions League match League with Wolfsburg. “It was a derby – explains Erica – and we knew that the tickets were already sold out after 48 hours, but the atmosphere we found was truly indescribable”.

In the stadium

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His name yelled at the presentation in front of the packed stadium, the plane show just before the race and the national anthem gave goosebumps. “I swear, I was moved to hear him sing in such an environment. And to think it wasn’t even mine. But when it was time for the presentation I got chills.” A record that came as the highlight of “Volleyball day in Nebraska”, a series of initiatives that lasted days and culminated with the derby that will go down in history.”The closer the date got, the more surreal it seemed to me, it was really incredible to think of being the protagonist in a volleyball match played in a packed stadium, with more than 92,000 people screaming. Even the preparation for the match was very different than usual, we trained at the Memorial Stadium on Tuesday and then we did the finishing with a temperature of 30 degrees” . A climate that was even hotter during the game and that dragged the hosts of the Nebraska Cornhuskers to a 3-0 victory (25-14, 25-14, 25-13) over the Omaha Mavericks. But the gap between the two teams was known, with the landlords ready to reach the goal of the national finals and the guests stuffed with freshmen and with a team projected to the future. He still doesn’t want to open Erica’s eyes and she keeps using the word “amazing.”

Amazing experience

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“Usually at our matches we have a good crowd, but always around 1500 people. Here, however, it was crazy, at one point I didn’t even see the people, it all seemed false to me, I can’t even describe my emotions” . One night was not enough to dispose of them and she set off again for a new competition that may not be as extraordinary but capable of representing a further step in the growth of a 21-year-old girl who is studying Economics at the University of Omaha in the United States thanks to a scholarship for scholastic merit. With the dream, in the future, of experiencing other such intense emotions thanks to volleyball.