Who wore number 5 in volleyball?

Jersey numbers aren’t quite important when we talk about the impact that the person has on the floor or the position they play, and it’s nothing more than a mere symbol to represent them and distinguish them from their teammates. Nonetheless, those jersey numbers are also one of the most important things in player’s minds when they get to a new place, wanting to carry their former number to someday find their shirt hanging high on the team’s facilities rafters.

Tomasz Wojtowicz

Tomasz Grzegorz Wójtowicz is a Polish sports commentator and former volleyball player, member of the Poland men’s national volleyball team in 1973–1984, 1976 Olympic Champion, 1974 World Champion, silver medalist at the European Championship (1975, 1977, 1979, 1983), 1983 Polish Champion.

Wójtowicz is considered one of the first volleyball players in the world to start attacking from the back row. In 2001, he was listed by the International Volleyball Federation as one of the top eight volleyball players in the world. Wójtowicz was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2002.

Valerio Vermiglio

Valerio Vermiglio is an Italian volleyball player, who was a member of the Italian men’s national team that won the silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

He played with Sisley Treviso and won the 2005–06 CEV Champions League and he also was awarded “Best Setter”.

Vermiglio win the 2011–12 CEV Champions League playing with Zenit Kazan, also winning the Best Setter award.

Brenda Castillo

Brenda Castillo is a female volleyball player from the Dominican Republic and plays as a libero. She was a member of the Dominican Republic national team that won fifth place in the 2012 Summer Olympics, while she was named the tournament’s Best Libero. She played in the 2014 World Championship reaching also the fifth place and ranking 17th in the 2010 World Championship and the 2011 FIVB World Cup where her national team ranked eight and the 2015 FIVB World Cup, winning the Best Libero individual award and ranking in seventh place.

She won the silver medal at the 2009 U20 World Championship, 2013 U23 World Championship and Bronze in the 2009 FIVB Women’s World Grand Champions Cup and the 2015 Pan American Games. She won the gold medal of the 2009 NORCECA Championship, 2010 Final Four and the 2010 and 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games. Castillo also won the 2008, 2010, 2014 and 2016 Pan American Cup championship.

In club competition, Castillo won the 2011 Puerto Rican League with Criollas de Caguas and the 2012-13, 2013-14 Azerbaijan Super League and 2014–15 with Rabita Baku. She became runner-up with San Cristóbal at the 2008 Dominican Republic Volleyball League and won the silver medal in the 2012–13 and the bronze in the 2013–14 CEV Champions League with Rabita Baku.

Osmany Juantorena

Osmany Juantorena Portuondo is a Cuban-born Italian volleyball player, known as a member of Cuba national volleyball team in 2003–2006, Italian national volleyball team and Italian club Cucine Lube Civitanova. Juantorena was bronze medalist of the 2005 World League and silver medalist 2016 Summer Olympics. He is a multiple winner of the CEV Champions League and FIVB Club World Championship with the Italian club Trentino Volley. Juantorena owns multiple Most Valuable Player awards at FIVB Club World Championship.

Zhu Ting

Zhu Ting is a Chinese volleyball player. She is known as an outside hitter and the captain of the Chinese women’s volleyball national team. She played for Turkish club Vakıfbank Istanbul from 2016 to 2019.

Zhu and the Chinese national team have won several gold medals in international competition, including in the 2016 Olympic Games and the 2019 World Cup. Since her debut in 2011, Zhu has received numerous MVP awards at all levels of competition, including the MVP award of Rio Olympic Games 2016. She is widely regarded as one of the best and most decorated indoor volleyball players of all time. She is also one of the highest paid professional volleyball players in the world, male or female.

Sergey Grankin

Sergey Yuryevich Grankin is a Russian volleyball player. Grankin started playing volleyball at the age of 7. He captained the Youth team of Russia at the victorious European Championship in 2004 in Croatia, and the 2005 World Championships in India, where he first confidently made himself known.

Mostly due to the mood of their captain, the Russians won the final match over Brazil in the first set when the score was 23:16 in favor of their rivals, the Russian scored 7 points in a row with Grankin serving, pulled out a losing set and broke down the Brazilians who lost the following two sets. He competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics where Russia claimed the bronze medal and at the 2012 Summer Olympics where Russia won the gold. His team won the gold medal at the 2013 European Volleyball Championship and he was awarded as the best setter of the tournament.

Paolo Tofoli

Paolo Tofoli is a former Italian volleyball player, a coach, standing at 188 cm.

He played 342 times for the Italy national volleyball team. Tofoli was two time world champion in 1990 and 1994. He was also four times gold medal at the European Championship (1989, 1993, 1995 and 1999). He represented Italy at four Summer Olympics, winning two silver medals and a bronze medal.

Starting from the season 2010/2011, Tofoli became the coach of the Italian women volleyball team Scavolini Pesaro.

Fabio Vullo

Fabio Vullo is a retired Italian volleyball player.

Vullo, standing at 1.98 m for 87 kg, was born in Massa, and played as setter (although at the beginning of his long career was employed also as hitter). Vullo revolutionized the role of the setter, because he was, along with the Dutch Peter Blangé, one of the first setters in the world capable to set the ball from a greater height and to be dangerous in attack, block and serve. Before Vullo and Blangé, most of the setters were much shorter (usually not taller than 1.90 m), but nowadays it is common to see setters who are over 2.00m tall, and are effective blockers and servers.

Despite being unanimously considered one of world’s best setters ever, Vullo was rarely capped by the Italian national team, due to his conflictual relationship with coach Julio Velasco. He therefore did not take part in much of the victories of that team during the 1990s: with the Italian national team, he only won one World League, in 1992.

On the other hand, Vullo had a long and very successful career at club level in the Italian Serie A1: he won 8 Italian titles, 7 Champions Leagues (4 with Modena, 3 with Ravenna), one European Champions cup, and other less important trophies, both in Italy and in Europe.

Vullo stopped playing in 2004, and became a TV commentator.

Paweł Zagumny

Paweł Zagumny is a Polish former volleyball player, member of the Poland men’s national volleyball team in 1996–2014, participant at the Olympic Games (Atlanta 1996, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012), 2014 World Champion, 2009 European Champion, 2012 World League winner, silver medalist at the 2006 World Championship and 2011 World Cup, and former president of the Polish Volleyball League.

Yeo Oh-Hyun

Yeo Oh-hyun is a South Korean male volleyball player. He is known for playing the libero position for the Cheonan Hyundai Capital Skywalkers.

Yeo, a 5-foot-9 (1.75 m) libero, played outside hitter for Hongik University for two years before converting to libero in the 1998–99 collegiate season. In the 2000 Super League semi-pro draft, Yeo was selected seventh overall by Samsung Fire Volleyball Club.

As the starting libero, Yeo helped the Samsung Fire Bluefangs win the national championship 11 times in the semi-pro Super League (2001−2004) and pro V-League (2005, 2008−2013).

After the 2012–13 V-League season, Yeo signed a contract with the Cheonan Hyundai Capital Skywalkers as a free agent. In the 2016–17 season, he won his eighth V-League championship, leading the Skywalkers to their third V-League title.

In June 2001 Yeo was first selected for the South Korean senior national team to compete at the 2001 Asian Championship, where South Korea won the gold medal and he was named Best Receiver of the tournament.

He took part as the starting libero for the South Korean national team at the 2003 Asian Championship, where the team won the back-to-back gold medal and he earned Best Digger honors.

At the 2008 AVC Cup, he was named Best Receiver and Best Libero of the tournament. South Korea lost to Iran in the gold medal game.

He was also a member of the national team at the 2003 FIVB World Cup, 2006 FIVB World Championship and 2007 FIVB World Cup.

Yeo retired from the national team after the 2012 Olympic Qualification Tournament.