GUADALAJARA, Mexico, August 25, 2021. - Two
tickets for the 2022 FIVB World Championship are
up for grabs between seven national teams at the
2021 Women’s NORCECA Continental Championship
that starts August 26 in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Head coaches gave their first insights about the
competition and their teams’ preparation.
Shannon Winzer, Head Coach
of Canada: “We’ve
had a really good preparation leaning into
NORCECA. We have a very young team and obviously
there’s been a change of players between 2019
and now, so we have really young players with a
lot of energy and they can compete. We’re going
to make errors for two reasons, because of our
lack of focus or because it’s just where we are
in our journey right now and the team really
understands that”.
Pablo Acuña, Head Coach of
Costa Rica: “We
are excited to be back competing at a senior
NORCECA event. The team consists of mostly U23
players that recently competed in Aguascalientes,
so the teams’ dynamic and chemistry is really
good. These twelve players and 10 others have
been working since the beginning of the year
preparing for the Central American Championship
in Nicaragua at the end of this year and this
will be an opportunity to compete, measure our
team against teams with good level and make a
diagnosis of how we are, decide what to work on
and improve for that event”.
Marcos Kwiek, Head Coach
of Dominican Republic: “We
have a good group, it’s a mix of young
experienced players and others are veterans, and
other young players that recently won the
NORCECA U23, it’s an interesting team. When we
go to competitions our goal is always to win the
competition, we will work hard to reach our
first goal that is to qualify to the world
championship and then we’ll see what happens”.
Rafael Petry, Head Coach
of Mexico: “Mexico
has been preparing since April, we had small
working sessions and held preparation matches
against Colombia. The team is focused on three
goals, reaching the final, qualifying to Worlds´
and winning a medal. México is thinking big, in
having better results and the players are really
motivated, I consider we can reach our goals by
working, doing our side respecting all our
opponents”.
Fernando Morales, Head
Coach of Puerto Rico: “Our
Professional League is being held at the moment
so we only had three practices together before
coming here, we are at a disadvantage against
Mexico who has been training all summer with a
new coach, Canada played in VNL and United
States at their training Center. Our advantage
is that individually they are in good rhythm of
play because of the Professional League, and I
expect to improve with each match”.
Courtnee Mae Clifford,
Head Coach of Trinidad and Tobago: “Part
of the team stayed here in Mexico after the U23
competition and we worked only in the gym and
swimming pool, but not on court; the rest of the
team that just arrived here trained three times
that week. We expect to try to compete and use
it as a measuring stake to figure out what we
need to do both with the administrative side and
on the volleyball court. Hopefully this
tournament will be an example of things to do
and not for the future; but with the addition of
the senior players we hope to put up a better
showing”.
Joseph Trinsey, Head Coach
of United States: “We
know this is the start of the World Championship
qualifications and our players are excited to be
here. We have a young group of players that are
hoping to break through with the USA national
team, most just graduated and this is their
biggest event ever representing USA and is
really excited after the success of the
Olympics”. |