03-MAY-2013
WC 2013: JUNIOR TEAM TRAVELS MONDAY

The Junior National Team - Men, coached by António Guerra and Ricardo Rocha will travel to the French city of Saint-Jean D'Iliac in the upcoming Monday, to play the 2013 World Championship European Qualifying Pool B.

The Portuguese party will undergo the following schedule:
May 6 – Porto/Lisbon (06h00 / 06h50) flight TP 1951
May 6 – Lisbon / Toulouse (08h35 / 11h30), flight TP 492 with connection to Bordeaux by bus.

Until the departure, the Portuguese U-21 will continue workout at Clube Atlântico da Madalena and Carvalhos High School.

The National Head Coach evaluates:
“From this point we’re only working the organization. We’re limited due to some players being yet in the dispute of final stages, and others who are training with the Senior team, that will join us already in France”.

At Saint-Jean D'Illac,France, from May 7-11, Portugal is to play against Belgium (May 7), France (May 8), Poland (May 9) and Latvia (May 10). [Calendar]

“We know that in this type of competitions which involve European teams, our mission is always diffciult. The most important is to evaluate our opponents, as well as our team in terms of stability, that we can only confirm during the competition. One thing we know for sure, we’ll have to be very strong both in serve and counter-attack. We need to defend very well among all things; we cannot let our opponent to score. That’s very difficult mainly due to their block dimension and the serve quality.
In other stages, we need to be stronger in the serve as in the block”, concluded António Guerra.

Accomodation (Saint-Jean D'Illac)
Park & Suites Village Bordeaux: Phone – +33 5 56 68 86 00

Pool A (Anapa) – Russia (host country), Greece, Denmark, Montenegro and Austria
Pool B (St. Jean D'Illac) – Belgium, Poland, France (host), Portugal and Latvia
Pool C (Sofia) – Bulgaria (host), Germany, Estonia, Romania and Israel
Pool D (Ivanjica) – Serbia (host), Spain, Slovakia, Finland, Czech Republic and Croatia

The first ranked teams of each pool will join the 2013 U-21 WC Final Round hosting country (Turkey) and the defending European Champion (Italy), to dispute the title from August 22 to September 1 at Ancara and Izmir.