We had the pleasure of chatting with Andrea (Oddi) who will be playing with Oida at the WMUCC this summer. Oddi has been a driving force for Ultimate teams across Europe and continues to showcase his love for Ultimate both on and off the pitch. Find out more about Oddi below!

Tell me a bit about yourself and how you first came across Ultimate

Hi, I am Andrea Furlan. My ultimate name and nickname is Oddi. I come from Italy but I’ve spent most of my life in Austria. I’ve been living in Austria since 1996, so quite a long time. I started playing Ultimate in 1993 in Bologna, I’m actually one of the founders of the CUSB Bologna team that now has grown so much. At that time, we were just a lot of rookies – very, very motivated but not so skilled. Then in 1996 I moved to Vienna and I started playing for the local team here in Vienna who at that time was called Groove Connection. In 1998 we rebranded the team to “thebigEZ (pronounced “the big easy”). Some older players of this club moved south of Vienna and built a team that plays with the young kids but also with the masters and grandmasters. That makes up the core of the team who will be heading to Limerick this summer.

I know there’s lots of snow in parts of Austria so would you playing Indoors during the winter months or are you strictly always outdoors?

We don’t play much indoor Ultimate in Austria. Of course yeah there’s snow, but we have turf fields that are cleaned because we share them with football. Sometimes it can be freezing so we train until the end of November and then we restart at the beginning of February. We can train indoors but there are not so many indoor tournaments in Austria. We go indoors for a common training session between kids and parents. 

Oh, well you’re completely prepared for any cold weather you might face in Ireland so if you train in the snow in Austria! How did you first find ultimate or when did you first start playing? Can you remember your first training?

When I started college at the Physics University of Bologna in 1993, there were some players playing ultimate from Rimini, Cotarica Rimini  that were studying there and they were throwing in the park. I started throwing with them and they told me that they were trying to build, together with the University of Bologna, a local team. They organised some fields with the University and coordinated trainings. You could say they were the mentors of CUSB Bologna that were there from the beginning.

And do you remember your first training with them? Or is it you remember the first day you saw people throwing a disc around?

I remember that it was November and that they were still training outdoors on an extremely hard turf field. I was laying out for every disc so I was covered in scratches! And the guys said “you’re a bit crazy – can you come again?” and I said “yes, yes, yes.”

Haha, yes we’ll keep you! 

Haha yeah so that was fun. In the 90’s there was really a little bit of pioneering still with throwing everywhere so we were bringing a disc to the main square and just throwing around, trying to promote the sport.

How would you describe yourself as a player?

My elders would consider myself to be an intelligent player in the way that I try to use my energies and my strengths in the most optimal way. I’m 173cm so I’m not that tall and I’m not that fast. But I can still play against players that are 30 years younger than me and I can still make a difference. I have the advantage of being able to read the game and position myself in a good way so that my weaknesses are less of a disadvantage. I made it my strength as a strong defender and continue to work on this with my experience playing. 

Do you think you’ve seen a change in the ultimate community from the 90s, 00s and 2010s years, or would you say the atmosphere has always stayed the same?

Well in the 90’s the Federation were not really present or structured in a good way. In the last 10 years there has really been a boost and a professionalisation of the sport at all levels, where people started to really dedicate more time to the sport or brought great experience resulting in better structured training and more intensity. At an organisational level we saw better and safer tournaments for everybody. At the top level, the Federation introduced better governance and better leagues which helped in bringing more people into the sport.

The way people play and train in Ultimate has evolved. Defence markers are much more intense and cutters are much more aggressive. I feel the game has changed a lot from clever positioning and the right breaks to overall being more intensive with lots of running and long throws. 

There are still a lot of fun tournaments in Austria and in the 90’s maybe there were almost only fun tournaments. There is a bit more spread of levels in the sport now versus before. There are tournaments for really elite teams that train really intensively, follow the rules of the spirit of the game, but they still want to really play at the top. And then there’s a lot of fun tournaments but we definitely see them being organised in a professional manner as well.

That’s brilliant to hear the development of it all. Were you always into sports like before you joined ultimate, or was ultimate like your first team sport that you played?

I’ve been into sports since I was a kid. I was changing sports every year from tennis, basketball to something new until I was 10 years old. Like many boys in the 80s in Italy, I landed on football. I played football at quite a high level. When I was 16. I was in a pre-selection of one of the top league football teams in Italy, but it was just too much. Training was three times a week plus driving 200 kilometres for a game was, yeah, really very high level. The mindset and atmosphere playing football at that time was something against my principles so I decided to quit.I took a break for two or three years where I did not take part in any club sports but when I heard about Ultimate it was clear for me – that’s my sport,

Yeah, it’s interesting how the different atmosphere a sport creates is what keeps people playing. So for yourself, is it the spirit of the sport that drew you in and why kept you playing? Or is it more your love for Ultimate or friends you’ve made.

I really believe in the spirit. I’m also the president of the European Federation (EUF) and I do a lot of work for ultimate and the community because I believe in the spirit, I believe in this idea, and that pushes me a lot.

Great. Now let’s talk about the team you’re coming to Limerick, tell us some more about them and how training has been going for you all.

I will be travelling to WMUCC with my team, Oida. In the Vienna dialect, Oida means my old friend. But it can also be used as an exclamation, as a positive thing, a negative thing, or as a surprise. It’s totally dependent on your facial expression and tone but it is always oida. This name was originally used in 2011 as an unofficial name of the Austrian Masters National team when we went to the beach World Championship in Italy where Austria won a silver medal in the Masters Division. Since then, just two of us are still playing. And we said “okay, we should reuse Oida for this new project”. And of course, it’s a project team. It’s based in Austria, with the players of Grandmaster age that are still playing. But since I’m Italian, I’ve also my old friends from 1993 that I played for Italy with in the European Masters Championship 2019 that are still playing and joining Oida. And finally, we also have some friends overseas, not only from England, but also from the US that I played with before too. There’s about six or seven people from that team that are now joining us on Oida.

In our age, coming together to train is an issue. For players who live in Vienna, we actually train quite regularly. But for most of the team, we were able to come together at a preparation tournament with the European Club Championships. We didn’t have our full squad of course as the Americans couldn’t travel and we also had some itches with some injuries but hopefully we’ll all be recovered by the time we get to Limerick.

That’s a lovely team name and great to see it really being put into practice with so many teammates traveling to Limerick. Besides being old friends, how would you describe the people on the team?

We are a very, very encouraging team. Of course, we’re a team that has a lot of experience in playing in different situations. And we know if everybody has a different idea on how to play the game, then it could go the other way and be a weakness of ours. So one of my tasks is to bring the many experiences and convey them in some kind of common way of playing. It’s definitely going to be fun for us to play with each other again. And if the results come we will be double happy. Otherwise, we will win the party.

Yes, that’s the best mindset to have! If I met anybody from your team, how might they describe you?

Oh – how would they describe me? I think that they would say everybody knows Oddi because I’m still present in the Ultimate scene. From a playing style, they would probably say I’m the short poachy player. That’s probably one of my strengths, that, as I said, I can read the game and position myself quite well. I’m not the one that runs behind the player, but stands in the way to see where the disc is coming. I think that they would describe me as a leader and team captain where they expect me to be very present in the game – I hope that my body will also play.

And how has training been going for you? I know everyone’s quite spread so how does that work out?

During Winter we were using Strava and it was fun. We set up a running group and were also using WhatsApp and we saw pictures of people in Canada, running in the snow in minus 20 temperatures compared to myself or other people that were in much warmer situations! We try to motivate each other to work on our fitness this way. With the distance between us all we cannot do regular training all together. Our plan is to come a day before the beginning of the tournament and use some space at this fantastic venue at the University of Limerick and get some time playing together.

Looking forward to seeing you! Now I just have one last question –  it’s universe point and you’re coming out on defence – what do you tell the team to go and try win the game?

Well, I always tell people on offence “this is why we are here, enjoy the moment” to relax them. On defense, you would try not to relax. I would say “now visualize your layout defense. You make the D and then we score easily. Let’s visualize that! And let’s get the disc, Oida!!!”