Playing Sports in Italy

One time, many months ago, I brought a friend with me to a volleyball practice.  She had been an excellent outside hitter from my previous stint in Philadelphia, where I had the pleasure to be teammates with her for a couple seasons. 

Once she arrived in Rome for her semester-long research trip, I thought to myself, This is perfect!  Now there can be TWO Americans on the team!

I brought her to my team’s typical practice session, one of the two nights per week for about 38 weeks of the year, October through June.  Games were usually played on the weekend, so in total, we often played three times a week, sometimes more. For being in the Open Mixed league, about six levels below professional volleyball players in Italy and I should mention this is a coed league if it’s not obvious yet, this level of commitment seemed surprisingly intense.  Back in the States, I had all too much trouble finding anything other than a recreation league. Comparatively, those American adult leagues never involved practices. They simply met once a week to play a match and seasons lasted anywhere from seven to 12 weeks. I'm sure they are out there, but it's not easy to find in Philadelphia, that much I know.

Photo Source: David Schwartz Photography, LLC

But here in Rome, they take their sport seriously.  After talking with my friend Leonardo about Italians and sports, we were both curious how the lineup went as far as the three most popular sports according to our countries.  I told him, “That’s easy.  In the U.S. it's probably a tie for football and baseball.  After that is basketball.”

 “Really?” he said. “Here in Italy, most popular is calcio," which is the name for soccer (big surprise soccer is #1, right?).

Then comes pallavolo, ball flight as the literal translation, or as we know it, volleyball. 

And last of the three most popular sports in Italy is basket, the short name for basketball out here. I should note that there is a true name for basketball and it’s as literal as it gets, meaning ball basket.  In Italian, it is pallacanestro.

I wish I'd known volleyball was so important back when I was in high school.  I would have moved here then, just to be popular.

In the end, my friend from Philadelphia decided it was too much commitment during her four months in Rome. She needed that time to continue her research, which was absolutely understandable.  What I thought important to pass along to the rest of the world is how to go about getting involved in sports teams if that is what you enjoy or if that’s what you want your child to get involved in.  It truly has been one of the best ways to practice the Italian language.

Prior to moving out here, I did as much research as I could and finding a league that suited my skill level was impossible.  Anything that came up was the top seeded Serie A teams. I’m good at volleyball, but I’m not that good. I also thought I was quite good at researching online, using search engines, etc., to find what I needed.  But when you introduce a completely different language, it’s much more challenging.

In Rome or even in the rest of Italy, sport leagues can be found for all ages.  Best to attempt an email to the Centro Sportivo Italiano, found at www.csi-net.it to find out your local offerings and to see who you can email to try out for a team.  Having played in the league for one season now (and winning first place – Go Virtus Prati!) and hearing absolutely nothing about other leagues, this one seems to be the premier sports organization in Italy connecting leagues across the entire country.

On the webpage, there is a link that opens up a submenu.  Hover over the words Contatti Sedi territoriali  then choose your territorial seat where you live – for me, it is Lazio since Rome is in the Lazio region. Then that opens up another submenu of cities in Lazio.  That’s when I click on Roma.

If you are serious about emailing, always apologize at the beginning for not being able to speak in Italian.  Explain in as basic language as possible your situation, your skill level and what sport you are looking for so when they google translate it, it won’t be awful to understand. For them, it will only be mostly bad. J