Father sought, son seeks: volleyball gives the Conte family a third chance

TOKYO - There are many stories of sons who follow in their fathers’ footsteps in sport and even surpass them. It is unusual, however, for a son to feel and hear his father’s excitement in the midst of an empty arena due to a once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic, the voice of his father in the middle of a game. A father who was already there, but could not go any further. Not the son, the son is not satisfied, the son wants more: he believes that he has not reached the goal at all.

“It’s beautiful!”, synthesizes the Argentine Facundo Conte while cramps threaten his stability and the hoarse voice gives the idea of how much those five sets 21-25, 25-23, 25-22, 14-25 and 15-12 with which Argentina defeated Italy to advance to the semifinals of volleyball at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games cost him. Thursday’s opponent will be France, 3-2 winners over Poland.

Facundo, the son of Hugo, one of the most important players Argentina has ever produced, a member of the Hall of Fame and bronze medalist at the Seoul 88 Games, as well as fourth at Sydney 2000. Facundo, who after being fifth in Río 2016 and seeing his national team 13th in the 2018 World Cup, decided to return to the team. He felt there was an unfinished story, and Tokyo is proving him right.

Conte Sr. is a commentator for Argentine television. He is in Tokyo and watches and suffers the matches of his son, to whom it does not escape him that he lives a privileged situation.

“To be able to share it with my old man, beyond the fantasy that the media can create, is beautiful, because he is my father! To be able to share it with him in a year when we could not be close, when no one can come to Tokyo.... And yet to be able to see him and hear his voice is beautiful, it’s beautiful”.

Conte listens to another voice, besides his father’s: the reporter José Montesano, who shouts “there goes the heir, there goes the heir”, in reference to Facundo. After the victory against Italy, Conte Jr. asked Montesano for something: to shout a little less, because he hears him from inside the court when he is about to serve, a moment of great concentration.

Conte Sr., who shone in the Italian League, where he was chosen three times as the best player of the season, was twice in the Olympic semifinals, and lost both times. The one in Seoul, however, was followed by the bronze medal match as Argentina defeated Brazil 3-2. Not in Sydney, there was no bronze in Australia. But the following year came a very special award for Conte: the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) chose him as one of the eight best players of the 20th century.

From that father comes Facundo - and from his mother, Sonia, a member of the national team at the Pan American Games - and before that father, who follows him from the stands at the huge and empty Ariake Arena, he will try to prevent the Conte saga from adding a third Olympic defeat in the semifinals.

“We are not looking back, we are only looking up. We can’t relax, we have the most important game of our lives on Thursday. And not to put pressure on ourselves, it’s the time to believe, to bandage our fingers, many of us are suffering physically, but there are two more little steps left, two more little steps, it’s not the time to look back.”

Luciano de Cecco comes by. The captain, the man who together with Conte and Sebastián Solé forms “the triangle”, as they call it, a triangle of experience and quality to support and encourage the younger players in the national team.

“Each one fulfills his role. If I shout what Facundo shouts, I won’t make it to the end of the game,” he says with a smile that can be seen behind his mask. And it’s true: what Conte shouts, cheers and celebrates during the matches has no name. Neither does what he plays.

And how does Argentina, of which Conte is the sporting and emotional driving force, play? He himself explains it by detailing what happened against Italy: “I think we played the game we wanted to play, which is to make the other team feel that it is going to lose. Let them feel that we are not going to let go of the prey. It happened with all the teams. Beyond the technical and tactical aspects, that mental strength is what defines us today. I am very proud that we have taken another step forward. I don’t know if we did it with authority, but we did it with boldness against another world power”.

“They have to get us off the pitch dead, because we’re going to keep trying, every ball. That’s our game, that’s our game, to touch the big guys’ balls. And today we did it again, and it makes me very happy and very proud to be part of this team.”