Amaranto keeps knocking on the door: Colombia’s rising star arrives in Italy with another award

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There is a moment in every young athlete’s career when potential stops being a promise and starts becoming a fact.
For Miguel Ángel Martínez Palacios, better known in world of volleyball as “Amaranto”, that moment may well be happening right now.
The Colombian opposite has spent much of 2026 turning impressive performances into trophies, individual awards and increasingly convincing evidence that his move to Italy is not simply a transfer for the future. It is the next step for a player who is already making people pay attention.
His latest achievement came in Bolivia, where Colombia claimed the bronze medal at the South American Cup after defeating Chile. And once again, he was at the centre of the story: the 22-year-old finished the tournament as the competition’s top scorer with 95 points and was named Best Opposite, adding another individual award to a season that has already been packed with them. Colombia’s campaign ended with a 3-0 victory over Chile in the bronze-medal match, with Amaranto contributing 20 points to seal the podium finish.
Argentina eventually took the title, defeating Brazil in the final, but for Colombia the tournament represented something much bigger than a bronze medal, as the national team also secured qualification for the Olympic qualification tournament, another important milestone for a programme that is steadily moving closer to the international elite.

And Martínez is becoming one of the faces of that growth.
His latest awards are hardly an isolated achievement: only a few weeks earlier, the Colombian had already enjoyed a remarkable run at the Central American and Caribbean Games, where he was recognised as MVP, Best Opposite and Best Scorer, helping Colombia claim the gold medal.
That sequence tells a story in itself. Amaranto is no longer simply a young player with an interesting international profile. He is becoming the offensive reference of a Colombian national team that is beginning to believe it can compete with more established volleyball nations.

“We deserved this bronze medal. We played with character, convinced that we could achieve an important result. We also achieved something even bigger for our country by qualifying for the Olympic qualification tournament. For us, this is a great achievement and it shows how Colombian volleyball is growing. We can now compete at an international level. Personally, I am satisfied with the tournament I played: being named Best Opposite is rewarding, just as rewarding as finishing as the competition’s top scorer. These individual awards make me very happy, but I also see them as the result of the work of the whole team. Behind every point there are my teammates, the coaching staff and everyone who works with us every day. We have an extremely demanding schedule ahead with the national team. In September we will play the Olympic qualifiers, and afterwards we will compete at the ODESUR Games. Then I will travel to Italy to begin my new life in Cisterna.”.

That “new life” is the next chapter of a journey that has accelerated dramatically over the last year.
Born in Carepa, Colombia, he moved to Medellín at the age of 16 in search of a higher level of volleyball.
He initially played as a middle blocker before being moved to opposite, a decision that would ultimately change the trajectory of his career. At 202 centimetres, with a reported spike reach of 368 centimetres and a blocking reach of 348, the left-handed attacker has developed into exactly the kind of powerful offensive weapon that modern volleyball demands.
His development has taken him across Europe, with experiences in Romania, Germany and Spain before his breakthrough season with CV Playas de Benidorm.
And what a season it was.
Amaranto finished the 2025/26 Spanish Superliga as the league’s top scorer, collecting 537 points in 22 matches, averaging more than 24 points per game. He also recorded 23 aces and 36 blocks, while attacking at 51 percent. It was a season impressive enough to turn a promising international prospect into one of the most intriguing young opposites on the European market.

And Cisterna Volley clearly saw the same thing.
The Italian club signed him in June, making him the first Colombian player in the history of Cisterna Volley and giving him the opportunity he had been dreaming about since he was a child: playing in Italy, in the SuperLega, widely regarded as one of the strongest league in the world.
But Amaranto is not arriving in Italy empty-handed.
His résumé already includes a third-place finish among the scorers at the 2021 FIVB U19 World Championship, a gold medal with Colombia at the Bolivarian Games with the U23 national team, an outstanding season in Spain and, now, a rapidly growing collection of individual awards with the senior national team.
And perhaps the most interesting part is that Martínez does not appear to see Italy as the destination of his journey, but as the beginning of its next phase.

“Physically, I feel very good. I have worked hard over the last few months to be ready and to maintain the highest level possible. I am living my dream, the one I started dreaming about as a child: playing volleyball and reaching the highest levels. Coming to Italy and having the opportunity to continue developing in the strongest league in the world makes me very proud. I speak often with coach Morato. He pays close attention to what I am doing with the national team and we keep in touch. We talk about Cisterna Volley, the season ahead and what he expects from me. And it is great to feel important and to have this kind of communication even before I arrive. It allows me to understand the situation and prepare myself for building my future, so that I can open this new chapter of my career with great enthusiasm.”

There is something particularly fitting about the nickname Amaranto.
It came from his childhood football days, inspired by Colombian defender Luis Amaranto Perea. Martínez liked the name immediately and eventually carried it with him into volleyball, turning a football reference into the identity by which he is now recognised on the court.
Now that identity is travelling to Italy.
Cisterna will have a young, powerful and hungry opposite on its roster, but also a player arriving at a very particular point in his career: experienced enough to have already played internationally and in several European leagues, yet young enough to still have an enormous margin for development.
And that may be the most intriguing part of the story.
Amaranto has already been a top scorer in Spain, has already won international medals, has already collected MVP and positional awards, and has already represented Colombia on the biggest stages, helping his national team take another step forward.
Now comes the SuperLega.
The league he dreamed about as a child is no longer something he watches from afar. It is waiting for him.
And if the last few months are any indication, he is not coming to Italy simply to learn.
He is coming to make noise.