Gabi Guimarães: From deciding to leave Brazil to her journey as a VakifBank leader

By a pristine pool, Bruno and Gabi sat talking like two people who rarely admit that success is never a straight line. No volleyball, no arena, only the quiet fear of a female athlete thinking about leaving home to chase a bigger version of herself. Gabi, the Brazilian outside hitter and one of the most emotionally expressive attackers of her generation, recalled the moment she understood that to move forward, she had to leave her comfort zone. “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. “I had experienced some injuries and had questions if I had what it took to play in the world’s best leagues. 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.” That turning point took Gabi to VakifBank, one of the most ambitious and strongest teams on the planet, before the 2026-2026 season. People often talk about the contract as a transfer. But for Gabi, it was a confrontation with her own fears. “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,” she reflected. “It was really challenging and demanding at the start. 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.” That small detail says a lot. In an elite women’s team, handing over the captaincy is not an honour that comes from the coach’s seat. It is a declaration: “I believe in your growth before you believe in yourself.” For Gabi, that declaration came from a man who watched her struggle in a new environment, facing a new language and a much more demanding training intensity. Gabi’s story is not only about clubs. Wearing Brazil’s jersey is another chapter, linked to her childhood and the women who paved the way before her. “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 recalled. “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.” Gabi’s story proves a larger truth: the path of female athletes is not always written in glamorous pages. They have to leave their families and familiar cultures, overcoming those ‘am I good enough?’ questions that society rarely asks their male counterparts. Gabi’s decision was not just a tactical career move; it was the choice of a woman who dared to put herself in the most demanding environment to become the best version of herself. In 2026, young Gabi stood in Saquarema and saw a dream made flesh. In 2026, she became part of VakifBank, the club where she was taught that a leader is not the loudest one, but the one who dares to take responsibility when everything is shaking. In a society that still asks women “how can you be a mother and a coach?” or “how can you be pretty and play so well?”, Gabi chooses to answer with action: she trains, she adapts, she becomes a captain. Gender equality in sport is not a game with a final whistle. It is made of small decisions like Gabi’s: leaving home when you are not sure, trusting a foreign coach when you do not yet trust yourself, and accepting the captain’s armband even though you have never imagined that role. Her story is not over. But those quiet moments by the pool show us that dreams never belong to those who only wait. When Gabi mentions 2026, she is not just telling about a call-up. She is telling about the moment a previous generation silently passed her the belief so that today she can pass it on to the next girls. Their silence is not agreement; it is a statement: we are here. We are ready.