Cuba and Peru relive past glories to return to winning ways

Singapore, Singapore, 25 August - Cuba and Peru are looking to the past to help guide their comebacks to international Volleyball's limelight. Cuba's boys' team and Peru's girls', who topped their respective groups to advance to the semifinals at Toa Payoh Sports Hall, are coached Volleyball legends of yesteryear. Their task is to lead a new generation that could end both countries’ recent trophy droughts.


Peru coach Natalia Malaga was, in her time, an extraordinary player and part of the country's silver medal-winning team at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games, and she has shared her experience of playing in those pressure-packed Games with the players coming through the youth categories.

Natalia Malaga was part of Peru's silver medal-winning team 1988 in the Seoul Olympic Games.

“Peru is working really hard to regain participation at major events like the Olympics and FIVB World Championships, and to be always among the world’s top 12 that qualify for those competitions,” she said.

A two-year absence from international Volleyball at the start of the decade hampered the development of new players in the country and Malaga now has to address this gap.

“These girls didn’t have a good start to the sport and there are a lot of mistakes that need to be corrected, which is something our winning team of the past didn’t have to do."

It's a similar story for Cuba coach Rodolfo Sanchez - a winner at the 1989 World Cup and 1998 FIVB World League, and semifinalist at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games for his national team.

Sanchez believes the attitude of his players needs to be fine-tuned.

"The Cuba players of the past had a different mentality. The players’ mentality nowadays is a bit weaker and we’ve been trying to instigate a winner mentality again,” he said.

“Lesson one is to have discipline. Without discipline there’s nothing. This is what I learned as a player.".