Cordoba awaits as the ball gets in play at CACG

CORDOBA, Mexico, November 14 2014 - Head coaches of the competing teams that will take part at the volleyball tournament of the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games shared their expectations abour the regional quatriennial championship that begins on Saturday at the Cordoba Arena.

Mauro Marasciulo, Coach of Colombia: We are in a very tough and complicated group. We expected to play in a less complicated Pool, but Mexico had the right to chose anyone. We have a very young team that won silver medal at the U23 Pan American Cup and also classified to the 2015 Women’s Grand Prix. So this has been a great year for us.

Horacio Bastit, Coach of Costa Rica: We know about the caliber of these games. And as we know, all the competing teams are playing with their highest potential. So we are going to face international caliber teams and our expectations are to try to qualifiy to the second round, and try to do our best.

Juan Carlos Gala, Coach of Cuba: For us this will be a key momento. This will be the most important competition and we are well prepared. We, as a team are looking for a place among the medal winners. Our young players will have the chance to show how they have developed their skills for the last year.

Marcos Kwiek, Coach of Dominican Republic: We  come from a long competition like the world championship. It was very tough. Our team came back very tired. But we had enough time to recover. The team is complete.  We have no injuries. This will be a difficult competition, because everybody wants to win. There are not many matches like in the world championship, but every match is important.

Jorge Azair, Coach of México: We feel some anxiety. Always the previous details are a little bit difficult for us, but we feel very motivated because we will play at home, and want to leave our soul on the field and why not, to fight for the gold medal.

José Mieles, Entrenador de Puerto Rico: We have spent a year with this team. This has been a year with a lot of competitions and we close the year with a lot of enthusiasm. It is a different team like the one we had at the World Championship with a lot of objectives. It’s a very united group. We come with Aury Cruz who is our delegation flagbearer. It’s a young but very experienced team internationally.

Sergio Rivero, Coach of Venezuela: We are very glad to be in Mexico and to represent Venezuelan Volleyball one more time at the International stage. We haven’t competed at the two previous editions, so this will be a great chance for us to appear once again at the International level.

Nicholson Drakes, coach of Trinidad and Tobago: “We expect to play very hard. We have a good preparation. We are commited to play a very good tournament and give our best. Despite being a tall and physical team, we need to gain some experience in a tournament like this”