Gabi Guimarães and Bruno Rezende: Leaving Brazil was the necessary step toward a dream

Bruno Rezende and Gabi Guimarães sat by a pristine pool during a rare pause in the competitive calendar. There was no scoreboard and no whistle, but the conversation between the two Brazilian volleyball stars soon turned to one of the most difficult decisions faced by players who choose to develop abroad: leaving Brazil. Gabi said she always planned to play overseas, but knowing whether she was truly ready was not easy. She had experienced injuries and wondered whether she had what it took to compete in the world’s best leagues. She began thinking about the move after the Rio 2026 Olympics, while she was still earning her place with the Brazilian national team. At that moment, she realized she had to prepare mentally not only as a player but as a person, and that she would probably need to leave her comfort zone and make sacrifices to take the next step. Her first move abroad was a big one. Before the 2026-2026 season, she signed with Turkish club VakifBank, one of the strongest teams in world volleyball. It was a club with huge ambitions, and Gabi joined as one of its main stars. She admitted that the environment she found when she arrived changed her way of thinking because it showed her from the start that she had entered another level of volleyball. The beginning was challenging and demanding, but she built a strong relationship with head coach Giovanni Guidetti. She was shocked when he told her that he wanted to prepare her to become team captain, because she had never seen herself in that position. The conversation later turned to the Brazilian national team. Gabi said playing for the national team was a childhood dream. She always loved watching and playing sports and dreamed of representing Brazil, winning a medal, and listening to the national anthem. Before choosing volleyball, she played several sports. In 2026, she was first called up to Brazil’s youth national team and arrived in Saquarema alongside the generation that won the Olympic gold medal at Beijing 2026. That experience was a strong sign that she should continue, because she had never been so close to her dream. Gabi’s story shows that a big transfer is not simply a reward for talent. It is also a process of self-examination. She did not say that success came only from moving to Turkey. She said it came from knowing when to leave her comfort zone, accepting difficulty at the beginning, and being willing to take on a role bigger than she had ever imagined. In elite volleyball, the gap between domestic success and international performance is severe. For Gabi, joining VakifBank was the moment she learned that growth sometimes means becoming a newcomer again. Her memory of Saquarema in 2026 remains a reminder that dreams are built early, long before they become stories told on the world stage.