|
CORDOBA, Veracruz - The coaches of the seven competing teams at
the Norceca Men's Continental Championship, shared their
expectations before the beginning of the event, which gets
underway on Monday at the Arena Córdoba
Glenn Hoag, Coach of Canada:
“We are ready to compete. I think we’ve recovered enough from
World Cup. We had a little bit of time to recover, was difficult
the first week when we came back but last week we practiced good
and I think the team is ready to compete,” he said.
“We’ll first we have to go for the first step, this continental
championship that is a multi step event, We are taking on one
event at a time as we focus on doing well at this event.”
César Salas, Coach of Costa Rica:
"We are very happy to be around here. These events are always
events that make a difference. It is a high class event. We will
face not only Norceca teams but quality and world elite teams.
We have prepared to put up a fight and give our best, always
thinking about the growth of volleyball in our area, mainly in
our country. We bring a large group for competition, already
waiting to open against powerful Cuba."
Pavel Pimienta, Assistant Coach of Cuba:
"This tournament is important not only for Cuba, that all teams
are looking for a ticket to the Olympic Games qualifier. We aim
to finish in the top four places to classify and play for that
ticket,” said Pimienta.
"Part of this team was at the FIVB Men’s U21 World Champinsip.
We bring very young players from youth and junior teams. Of
course there are those who have more experience to carry on the
team in order to go for our goal."
Marco Antonio Tejeda, coach of Honduras:
"Having the privilege to participate at this event is a
pleasure. We are looking forward to see what will happen, what
we can do. We think we have a team that is not at the level of
the top teams, but to give good games here and to make a good
impression. That is something we can do. "
Roberto Vilches, coach of Mexico:
"I think it's a great event right now, by the organization
you're seeing, you're seeing a very beautiful, very spectacular
venue that looks great. We want to invite all the people of
Veracruz to come here and participate.
"We hope to give the best of ourselves, and we think one of the
main objectives is to be among the four finalists and discuss
one of the first three places."
Javier Gaspar, coach of Puerto Rico:
"We are ready and excited about the opportunity to qualify for
the Olympic classification tournament. That’s the goal. The
group has not worked in the same amount in volume in relation to
the preparation we had before the Pan American Games, and we are
also in our national league season, but we are eager to compete.
"We have a good mix of experienced players and some young
players that have been evaluated with a view to the Olympic
qualification and for the next cycle, so we're happy with the
team we expect great things if not in the immediate future in a
somewhat distant future.
Lyndon Simmons, team manager of Trinidad and Tobago.
Coach Gideon Dickson of Trinidad and Tobago was still in route
to Mexico, along with some other members of the squad, so Team
Manager Lyndon Simmons, shared his thoughts on behalf of the
delegation.
“We have an amount of new guys on the team. A couple of them are
senior guys. So we are gonna try to do our best as we can
representing our country and we look forward to compete with the
other teams.” |
