Ferhat Akbas to steer Team Croatia to new heights
News
After announcing earlier this week the end of Daniele Santarelli’s era, the Croatian Volleyball Federation has found in 35-year-old Ferhat Akbas from Turkey the next head coach of their women’s national team. Even though he is still very young, Akbas already has a 15-year-long coaching career on his resume.
Ferhat Akbas“Croatia is an extremely strong country with an excellent structure and many players full of potential. There are many Croatian players competing around the world, so I am already familiar with them. Moreover, I have many friends in Croatian Volleyball, including players and coaches, so I can say that I have a good connection with Croatia. In my opinion, Croatia can improve their current European and world ranking."
"I believe that we deserve better results at the European Championship and that with good cooperation we will achieve excellent things in the future, which is why I accepted the offer of the Croatian Volleyball Federation,” he continues.
Ferhat Akbas had a short playing career, and after that, he started working as a statistician for Galatasaray in Istanbul and Türk Telekom from Ankara. He soon became an assistant to the great Chinese coach, and once successful player Lang Ping, with whom he went to China, where they won the national league title with the Evergrande Hengda team. During his stay in China, he received an invitation from the great Italian coach Giovanni Guidetti to be his assistant at VakifBank, and soon after that, he became an assistant to another renowned Italian expert, Massimo Barbolini, who was then working in Turkey as well.
For a while, Akbas worked in the club and the national team at the same time, which helped gain even more experience. “Club competitions last for a longer period, while the national team has much fewer obligations on an annual basis. At the club, you can easily replace a player you do not like and create a new team, but when you are in the national team you have to know how to get the best results with the best players from that country. A great advantage for the coach is the parallel work in the club and the national team. That is how I always keep myself fresh and upgrade my coaching skills.”
His background owes much to the former Olympic champion and head coach of the Chinese women’s national team, Lang Ping, as well as from the experience he gained in the many countries where he has worked. He is now looking forward to a new adventure in Croatia.
Ferhat Akbas“This season we are playing in the Golden European League, the Mediterranean Games and the FIVB Challenger Cup. We will see whether we will play qualifiers for the European Championship or not. Of course, one of the most important goals for Croatia is the Mediterranean Games, where we will do our best to achieve a good result. At the same time, our goal is to improve the FIVB ranking and win a place in the next European Championship.”
The new coach of the Croatian women’s team loves hard and dedicated work. He believes that proper communication with the players and the Federation is extremely important and tries to keep himself up to date with the latest trends in world Volleyball. He tries to nurture an active and aggressive game with a lot of speed, so he will try to implement such a system with Team Croatia as well.