IS A revamp looming over the horizon for the national men’s and women’s volleyball teams that failed to take home a medal in the Hanoi Southeast Asian Games last month?
Expect the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) to lean towards this direction next month as it hopes to strengthen the team that painfully crashed out of medal contention in Hanoi.
The country wound up fourth of five teams in the women’s division and fifth of seventh in the men’s side.
But first, the Nationals will play a couple of exhibition games against Thailand on Saturday and Japan the next day for the women’s team and Japan on June 16 and Germany on June 27 for the men’s squad at the Filoil Flying V Arena.
VOLLEYBALL NATIONS LEAGUEThe PNVF is taking advantage of the presence of these foreign teams, who were among the top nations scheduled to play in the two Volleyball Nations League (VNL) the country will host this month.
The first one is the second week of the VNL women’s preliminary round set on June 14 to 19 at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum, and the other is the men’s pool matches slated for June 21 to 26 also at the Big Dome.
Tokyo Olympics gold medalist and three-time VNL champion United States, Asian titlist Japan, Thailand, China, Bulgaria, Poland and Canada will comprise the women’s meet while France, Japan, Slovenia, Argentina. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and China will see action in the men’s section.
Quezon City Vice-Mayor Gian Sotto was thankful to the PNVF for bringing the VNL to their city that he thinks will create volleyball awareness especially to the youth and boost their sports programs. — Joey Villar