TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras; July 27, 2022.- The V Central American Championship will begin this Thursday, July 28, at the Jorge Galeano Gymnasium, in the Tegucigalpa Olympic Village, with seven teams in search of the title obtained by Costa Rica in the previous four editions.
The coaches anticipate a very competitive tournament, since it is a prelude to the absolute category and the technical and game level is very high.
José Fontés, coach of Belize: “We have a few different players than the ones we had in the Under 21s (where they were runners-up); It is a higher category competition and we lost one of our best scorers, but if we are going to try to make it a more fruitful competition. The Afecavol competitions will be very equal, even the level of the countries that were weaker before have increased and that helps us to put on a good show”
William Fernández: Coach of Guatemala: “We bring the same under 21 group (they were champions) and the goal is to give the maximum in each game, play with joy and with the same courage that we did in Belize. It must be a very level tournament… the level will be for anyone, we have come from a very long jump due to the pandemic, where we did not have warm-ups or tournaments, but the teams have also grown.”
Noé Fabián, coach of El Salvador: “This is a very competitive tournament, everyone has raised their level, including El Salvador, who has been improving little by little. The champion of this tournament will be the team that manages to keep the level of play constant, because here a stumble and you stay with a chance. The importance is to resume all the tournaments of minor categories is that they serve as training, they are the base of the major National Teams, and our objective is the Central American Games and the Central American and Caribbean Games”.
Marvin Ulloa, coach of Honduras: “We want to continue in the medal table, that is the objective due to the trend that this group brought from the other categories from the U18, U20… we believe that this will end with something good, besides that we have the team complete, with players who come from the Under 21 in Belize (they were third)”.
Claudia Noguera, coach of Nicaragua: “We hope to maintain the place obtained in the previous tournament (third place), it is a young team, with many players for the future, who we hope will later be part of the Senior National Team. Our goal here is to maintain the level of the game, move up the rankings and showcase the talent of the new faces of Nicaraguan volleyball.”
Andrés Carbajal, Costa Rica: “We come with enthusiasm, joy, aware of the responsibility we have to revalidate this title and reach the five-time championship. We greatly respect the work of the other teams and expect games of a high level and demand. It is a group that has players who have already experienced this type of events, there is a mixture of experience and novice players. The group has accepted and received them (the new ones) well, we hope that there will be no nerves or anxiety in competition, the group is very united”.
Eliot Clarke, coach of Panama: “Our expectation is that the team is young, they have talent, but we want them to develop little by little, each game will help them get to know each other and give their best. It is a fairly young team, only about two are from the category and the rest are younger; We hope to continue working with this team and keep it going for a long time.”
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