Stars of EuroVolleyW: Isabelle Haak
2022 Europe’s Female Volleyball Player of the Year, known as the Swedish Queen or the Queen of the North, Isabelle Haak is unquestionably one of the brightest Volleyball stars nowadays. Even if she doesn’t come from a Volleyball orientated country, her extraordinary talent and skills made her a scoring machine and the player who makes the difference on the court. The 1.96m-tall opposite, following her successful story at the club level, gave rise to the new chapter of Sweden’s Volleyball. Already back in 2021, she led her team to the quarterfinals and now – after a successful start to this summer – they definitely aim even higher and 24-year-old Isabelle Haak is the player who you should keep an eye on!
Introduced to the sport by her mother, she spent long hours in the backyard playing around with her older sister Anna, with whom now she can share experience in the national team. “Bella” began her volleyball career at a local club in Engelholms. And soon after, she started to amaze Volleyball world. In 2014, at age 14, she made her international debut in senior national team of Sweden in the game against Latvia. Two years later, she moved abroad to start her international career, signing her first contract with Beziers VB. After one year in France, she moved to Italy, where she spent two seasons playing for Savino Del Bene Scandicci and, in 2019 she joined the constellation of VakifBank stars, becoming the key players of their successful campaigns and showing to the world her immense potential.
Two years ago, she was a driving force of Sweden’s successful campaign at the EuroVolley 2021. First, she led the team to Europe’s elite competition, ending a 38-year absence from the European Championships. But Haak & co. made a big comeback, as they reached the quarterfinals of the competition for the first time ever. At that stage of her career she had already won the Turkish Cup and Turkish League (2020/2021), but it’s fair to say that since the EuroVolley 2021 her career has totally exploded, adding numerous precious medals to her cabinet. After the 2021 national team season, Isabelle Haak started her dream club season. She played pivotal role in VakifBank’s victory at the FIVB Club World Championship, becoming the MVP of this prestigious event. The Turkish powerhouse won all the domestic trophies, including the Turkish SuperCup, the Turkish Cup and their domestic league. On these occasions, her performances couldn’t go unnoticed, delivering her numerous individual awards. But definitely most rewarding was making her biggest dream came true. In May 2022, along with her teammates, she lifted the Champions League trophy, achieving her ultimate goal and dream.
She has continued her successful story although she changed the club. After three seasons in Türkiye, she came back to Italy to play for Imoco, swapping places with Paola Egonu. Along with her new team, she repeated the success at the FIVB Club World Championships – not only by winning the trophy but becoming back-to-back MVP, which happened only for the second time in history of this competition. She won the Italian SuperCup, Italian Cup and Italian League, but she and her team didn’t manage to make it to the Champions League SuperFinals, leaving a big insufficiency. Without doubt, that made the Queen of Sweden even more hungry for new feats.
After winning the European Silver League in 2022, this summer Sweden competed in the European Golden League, finishing as a runner-up and being only a step from grabbing qualification to the Volleyball Nations League at the FIVB Challenger Cup, where they lost in the decisive game to France. Isabelle Haak was on scoring duty, delivering mind-blowing digits to her team. In the European Golden League in only 8 games she scored in total 245 points (7.9 set average!). And with no doubt, Sweden, powered by Isabelle Haak is capable of hitting new grounds during this EuroVolley campaign.