Simon Torwie embraces the challenge of growing with Trentino

There is a wall in Trentino’s video room that makes it difficult to forget where you are.

Covered with images from two decades of success, it tells the story of a club accustomed to lifting the biggest trophies: Champions League titles, world crowns, Scudetti and Supercoppe. For Simon Torwie, sitting in front of it while preparing for the next match offers both perspective and motivation.

“When you sit there preparing for the next match, it’s easy to look right at the wall and be humbled by what the club has already accomplished,” the German middle blocker says.

“So, before it’s a responsibility, it’s an honour. Every team one plays for gives one responsibility, just that the dimensions of what’s possible and what’s been done are a bit bigger.”

For Torwie, those bigger dimensions have become part of everyday life.

His move from German volleyball to Italy brought him into one of the most demanding environments in the sport, and into a Trentino gym where international stars surround him every day. Yet when he talks about what his time in Italy has given him, he does not begin with tactics, technique or trophies.

He talks about becoming tougher.

“Overall, Volleyball in Italy has hardened me,” Torwie explains. “Both emotionally and physically, I had to learn to be tougher on myself. Not in a cold, painful way, but more in a self-confident and resilient way.”

That resilience has been built through the less glamorous parts of life as a professional athlete: work in the training gym and weight room, conversations with coaches, trainers and nutritionists, and the constant process of preparing himself to deal with more adversity than he thought possible.

And at Trentino, there are not many opportunities to switch off.

“The training environment here is the most impactful thing on my career while in Trento,” he says.

“Apart from having amazing examples to imitate every day, it gives me the daily challenge of surviving in practice.”

It is a striking choice of words, surviving practice, but Torwie means it.

Individual performances may fluctuate, but the level around him rarely does. The result is an environment where every training session becomes another test.

“The overall quality of training remains ridiculously high, which means that there’s just no day off. Every single day, one has to go in and give it all, or else you’ll be the butt of the gym.”

“It’s not easy, but as I’ve said before, it’s made me more resilient.”

There is another side to that pressure. Holding his own against some of the world's best players provides Torwie with his own measuring stick.

“When I do well in this gym, it gives me a lot of confidence and optimism for the future,” he says. “I know that if I can succeed with these guys, I will probably be fine in most other places in the world where Volleyball is played.”

Learning to adapt

Adaptation has been something of a recurring theme for Torwie this year.

Before returning to Trento, his summer with Germany brought another challenge with the arrival of Massimo Botti as national-team head coach, succeeding Michał Winiarski.

Germany's EuroVolley campaign in 2026 was part of a five-month national-team summer which Torwie describes as a “rollercoaster of events, emotions, and learning”.

A new coach meant much more than learning a new system.

“Not only is his accent different, but his volleyball-specific vocabulary is different, the coaching style, the cultural differences,” Torwie explains.

He believes both players and staff initially underestimated how much time genuine adaptation would require. The experience ultimately reinforced lessons extending well beyond the court.

“My biggest takeaway was the need for patience, communication both within the team and with all staff members, being open and honest when addressing problems or situations.”

Germany may not have achieved the results they wanted this summer, but Torwie returned to Italy encouraged by what he had seen.

“It gave me a lot of confidence and optimism for the coming years with the new staff,” he says. “Although we didn’t achieve any big results this year, we showed the potential we have for the coming years.”

The journey between Germany and Italy has also given him an unusual vantage point from which to observe two different volleyball cultures.

Torwie is careful not to diminish the Bundesliga, pointing to its history, internationally successful clubs and players, and its place among Europe's leading domestic competitions.

But there is one word he uses to describe what separates Italian Volleyball: established.

“Italian professional Volleyball is more mature, bigger, has a larger economy, and is more known worldwide,” he says.

The differences are particularly visible in player salaries and crowds, although Torwie sees the latter beginning to change as attendances continue to grow in Germany.

For him, however, experiencing Italian Volleyball from inside has been less about comparing countries than absorbing what the environment can teach him.

Life in the middle

Even Torwie's position provides its own lessons in perspective.

Middle blockers can spend an evening jumping, moving laterally across the net and attempting to disrupt an opponent's attack, only to finish with a statistical contribution that hardly reflects the physical work involved.

Torwie has learned to appreciate something else about the role.

“I love that I get to watch the game for half the time,” he says.

“It sounds like a joke, but I mean it seriously.”

Those spells off court give him time to recover, speak calmly with coaches and teammates and study what is unfolding in front of him.

“It allows me to watch the game, to soak in the energy of the arena, and appreciate the quality and fun of what’s in front of me,” he explains. “All that combined allows the middle blockers to reset and come back into the game with the right mindset and physicality required.”

And if volleyball followers already understand how demanding the position can be, Torwie believes there is at least one occupational hazard they may have overlooked.

The shoes.

“Maybe it’s due to the infinite amounts of lateral and swivel steps we take, under immense weight loads, but our shoes get destroyed within months,” he jokes.

“It’s expensive!”

It is a small detail, but perhaps an appropriate one for a player whose development has been shaped by the accumulation of thousands of seemingly insignificant repetitions.

Now another Champions League campaign provides the next test.

Torwie is surrounded by reminders of what Trentino teams before his have achieved in the competition. He is surrounded, too, by players from whom he can continue learning every day.

Ask him what the next step should be, though, and the answer is remarkably simple.

“Just grow. Physically, mentally, as a person, as a teammate.”

Growth, he knows, is rarely linear.

“Some days I take steps backwards, others I jump ahead and feel invincible.”

There is one area in particular where the middle blocker wants those steps forward to come: his attack.

“Having the right physicality is one thing, but killing the ball always is completely different,” he says.

Fortunately, there are worse places to learn.

“Luckily I have some pretty amazing middle blockers to watch and learn from around me all day, so it should be doable.”

And perhaps that is the best way to understand Torwie's place at Trentino.

The history on the video-room wall might show where the club has already been, but for a player still intent on growing, the more important lessons are happening on the other side of the door, every day, in a gym where standing still is simply not an option.