19-JUNE-2013
PORTUGAL PREPARES TO TAKE THE NETHERLANDS
 

Japan’s stunning recent victories over Finland changed the FIVB 2013 World League Pool C standings, with Canada now taking the favoritism to the final stage qualify, but also with good perspectives for Portugal, providing that the National Team wins the upcoming matches. [Standings]

With that in mind, the National Head Coach, Flavio Gulinelli holds on to the initial goals so far, and only thinks tom avenge last year’s World League Playoffs won by the Dutch.
“At this point, we have six more games to play and we only have to care for ourselves. Last year’s matches against The Netherlands were an upset for our team which performed well, recorded more points than our opponent, but in the end, we didn’t manage to win. I believe everything is clear in the player’s mind: we wish to play for victory right from the start”, said Gulinelli.

João Coelho, Portugal’s libero:
“We want to continue the good work. The away matches are always very complicated, but we have to do our best. Our next opponent is The Netherlands, and reminding what happened last time we face them, we hope to change the result to our favour starting from game 1, which hadn’t been good so far in this pool. We want to continue our grow as a team and therefore we have to approach every match with the same willing to win.
The Dutch team has very tall players (above 2.00m average), but we have our weapons as well. We have to be consistent in the side-out and then serve strongly to create some difficulties”.

Portugal’s opposite, Marco Ferreira has been sidelined due to an injury, but now he’s likely to return to Flavio Gulinelli’s plans…
“I haven’t been playing for 4 months and it’s never easy…but I’m enjoying the team’s matches. My team mates are performing well and we are fighting to reach our goals and that’s what matters. Last year we had bad luck against the Dutch for the sets we won we had a bigger advantage than the ones they won. Anyway, Portugal and The Netherlands are two teams that know each other well. We know about their strengths but I believe that we can achieve good results in both matches”.

Faster recovery
with 4ntep support

Valério Saleiro, teacher at the “4ntep - Massage and New Therapy School” has been following the National Team 2013 World League workouts along with his students.

“We are supporting our National Team’s World League campaign as partners of the Portuguese Volleyball Federation. We were at Anadia for the training camp and now here at FADEUP, and next week we will be at Guimarães, working on the athletes’ recovery through massages. I think it’s working well both ways, as the staff and players’ feedback is very positive. We work on the entire athletes’ body but given volleyball’s specificities, we concentrate on the upper limbs and back. The players are well but we’re late in the season so a few pains sometimes appear. With so many games and travels, our goal is to work on their fast recovery”.

Vídeo: www.youtube.com/forcavolei

Contact

More info: www.fivb.org / www.fpvoleibol.pt/WL2013 / www.facebook.com/fpvoleibol