Alas Pilipinas men’s squad is tuning out from the outside noise and high expectations in its bid to make history in the 33rd Southeast Asian Games here.
Main setter Owa Retamar admitted that there’s pressure for the team to deliver a podium finish — a first-ever gold medal, even — following the Filipino spikers’ impressive run in the FIVB World Championship last September.
“Yes, expectations are high but we try to focus on our team. We want to focus on what we should do every game against each team that we’ll be facing against,” said the playmaker, who, along with Alas indoor and beach volleyball men’s and women’s teams, will arrive Monday.
Alas men’s is bracketed in Group B with three-time defending champion Indonesia and Myanmar.
Cambodia, which won silver during its hosting of the biennial meet two years ago, was initially in the bracket but has withdrawn its participation.
“We’re facing strong teams in our bracket,” Retamar said.
“I think Cambodia’s not playing so I think we’re lucky to be in the bracket since that one less strong team to worry about,” he added.
“But what we want to do is to focus on one game at a time.”
With the Cambodians out, Alas’ chances went up slightly with just two teams to worry about.
The Philippines opens its campaign on 13 December against Myanmar at the Indoor Stadium Huamark, Sports Authority of Thailand, before taking on the Indonesians on 16 December.
But winning won’t be a walk in the park, not even for a team coming off a high from a 19th place finish in the 32-nation World Championship, highlighted by a four-set win over African champion Egypt and a near Round of 16 run.
“We’ve already talked about that. Lolo (head coach Angiolino Frigoni) told us that a lot of people expect an automatic gold from us,” the 25-year-old playmaker said.
“Now it’s up to us how we’ll work as a team, how we’ll communicate inside the court and try new things to catch our opponents off-guard.”
Alas is looking to end a two-edition podium drought after a runner-up finish in the 2019 meet held in Manila.
