Horacio DiLeo’s name was announced this Friday (11/14) as the new coach of the Argentina men’s team for the Los Angeles-2028 Olympic cycle. And you know the magnitude of the challenge.
With nine seasons under his belt at Volei Renata, his first competition in 2026 will be the South American Championship and Nations League (VNL) competition, which will qualify for the Olympics.
– I am very proud to take on this challenge and feel honored to lead my home country’s team. For me, continuing the work of Marcelo Mendes is a great responsibility and a challenge, commented the Campinas coach.
He will replace his friend Marcelo Mendes, who said goodbye to the manager after this year’s Philippine World Cup.
– Marcelo is an irreplaceable man to me. He is the type of person who makes a difference in all aspects, but my determination is to maintain the path we have built over the last few years. We have clear goals and know that they can only be achieved through one path: work. ” he added.
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Former setter Horacio DiLeo oversaw both the men’s and women’s training teams of the Argentina national team in the 1990s. He returned to the national team in 2019 as assistant coach and Marcelo Mendes’ right-hand man.
From 2019 to 2021, DiLeo coached the team to a gold medal at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima and was an assistant to the team’s historic bronze medal win at the Tokyo Olympics. He returned to compete in the VNL and World Championship in 2025 at Mendes’ request.
Furthermore, he has international experience with clubs in Romania, Turkiye and France, as well as managing the Colombian national team for two seasons (2011-2013 and 2017-2018).
The 62-year-old Argentine joined Campinas in the 2016/2017 season and is in his ninth year at the helm of the team. In eight seasons, DiLeo coached nearly 300 games, winning 174 of them. With this project, he won the Copa São Paulo 2019 and Paulista titles in 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025, as well as leading the team to two consecutive Superliga finals (2023/2024 and 2024/2025) and two other semi-finals of the main national tournament.
Horacio had a great year in the 2024/2025 season, his eighth in charge of the project, reaching the podium in every competition he participated in, including winning the Paulista title, finishing 3rd in the Copa Brasil and finishing runners-up in the Superliga, as well as leading the team to their best season ever in major domestic tournaments. They achieved 18 wins in 22 games, surpassing their 17 wins in the 2015/2016 and 2020/2021 seasons.