PHILIPPINE volleyball needs maturity, preparation and fire in the players’ eyes to succeed on the global stage.
These came out of evaluation sheets following Foton Filipinas’s seventh-place finish in the 2016 Asian Volleyball Confederation Asian Women’s Club Championship that ended on Sunday at the Alonte Sports Arena in Biñan, Laguna.
“The fire wasn’t there,” said Fabio Mente, the Italian coach of the Tornadoes who closed out their campaign with a 25-17, 30-28, 25-23 setback to T. Grand of Chinese Taipei in the consolation round on Sunday.
The Tornadoes could only show two victories in seven matches in the highly-charged tournament that offered world-class volleyball from the Chinese and Japanese squads.
Foton Pilipinas set an initial goal of reaching the semifinals, a mission that was slammed and transformed into a modest fifth-place finish.
“The semifinals was more of a dream,” Mente said.
NEC Red Rockets of Japan won the championship at the expense of Ba’yi Shenzhen of China, 25-23, 25-19, 25-21.
The Tornadoes opened their campaign on a high note with a rousing victory over Pocari Sweat of Hong Kong, 25-20, 25-14, 25-10. Their weaknesses started to show when they suffered a five-set meltdown to Thongtin Lien Viet Post Bank of Vietnam, 18-25, 25-19, 25-20, 12-25, 8-15,
Foton Pilipinas made the next round but lost all of its matches in the quarterfinals.
Menta said the Philippines lags continental powerehouse Japan, China and Thailand, stressing the team’s lack of preparation compounded their woes. The Tornadoes only had two weeks to prepare for the championship because of the players’ commitments with their mother clubs.
“This is not the way to prepare for an international competition,” Mente said.
The Italian said that if the team was more agg ressive and hungry, it could have stood a chance against teams like Kazakhstan and Iran and finished better in the tournament.
“We should have done better in terms of aggressiveness and hunger,” he said.
Despite the seventh place finish, Menta still commended the Tornadoes’ effort.
“I couldn’t say anything to the girls because I thanked everyone for the effort. Maybe we should have spent a little more time together,” he said.
The stint served well for the Tornadoes who will see action in the Philippine Superliga Grand Prix which opens on October.