Federação Portuguesa de Voleibol

Women’s Junior National Team, coached by Gilda Harris and Paula Semedo will travel tomorrow to Subotica, where the Portuguese U-20 will play Serbia, Belgium, France and Denmark, from May 8-12, for the 2013 World Championship European Qualifying Pool A.

The Portuguese party will undergo the following schedule:
May 7 – Porto / Frankfurt (06h00 / 09h45), flight LH 1181
May 7 – Frankfurt / Beograd (11h10 / 12h55), flight LH 1406

At the Hala Sportiva “Dudova Suma” in Subotica, the National Team will face Serbia (May 8), Denmark (May 10), France (May 11) and Belgium (May 12). [Calendar]

At the end of the training camp held at Carvalhos, Paula Semedo NT Assistant Coach stated:
“We had 16 athletes in this training camp to work with. 12 of those were selected for the competition at Serbia. The workouts had the objective to build a team which could grant us the best results possible. We have been working hard and we’re glad with this group. We take the hope to achieve our maximum capabilities with us, and I promise that we’ll do everything that we can to perform at a high level. We know that our opponents are stronger but we’ll try to counter their favoritism with our skills”.

“We have a good serve that could be used to create difficulties in our opponent’s defense, in order to block better their attack.
When in late January we played the Youth Qualification, it were the first international matches for some athletes, who didn’t manage well the pressure of this type of matches. I think this time, things will be better; they already know the pressure of this competition and our opponent’s value, and that they need to be well on defense. If you don’t have a good defense it’s not so important to have a good attack”.

Accomodation (Subotica)
Hotel Galleria: Phone – +381 24 647111 / Fax – +381 24 647110

Pool A (Subotica) – Serbia (host), Belgium, France, Portugal and Denmark
Pool B (Friuli) – Italy (host), Slovakia, Finland and Spain
Pool C (Samokov) – Germany, Bulgaria (host), Croatia, Greece and Latvia
Pool D (Ramenskoe) – Russia (host), Poland, Romania and Slovenia

The first ranked teams of each pool will join the 2013 U-20 WC Final Round hosting country (Czech Republic) and the 2012 European Champion (Turkey), to dispute the title from June 21-30 at Brno and Prostejov.

Players
	Name	Date of Birth	Club
1	Beatriz Lourenço Santos	10-08-95	Col. Rosário
2	Maria João Santos Tavares	20-10-94	Col. Rosário
3	Maria Miguel Ribeiro Baptista	25-02-95	Col. Rosário
4	Patrizia Nunes Leal	23-02-94	Sto Tirso
5	Margarida Antunes Marques Reis	31-12-94	Lusófona VC
6	Ana Luis Afonso Martins	05-03-96	SC Braga
7	Eliana Martins Pereira	25-05-96	SC Braga
8	Inês Sofia Nogueira Alves	10-09-96	Leixões SC
9	Ana do Carmo Dias Figueiras	07-09-97	Leixões SC
10	Gabriela Filipa Ramos Coelho	01-09-97	Col. Rosário
11	Mariana Rocha Maia	13-05-96	Col. Rosário
12	Bárbara Sofia Moreira Gomes	10-03-96	CARDES
Equipa Técnica
	Amélia Melo (Team Manager)	Gilda Harris (Head Coach)
	Paula Semedo (Assist. Coach)	Diogo Barata (Therapist)