Volleyball
Israel prepare for EuroVolley qualifiers alongside Japanese elite team
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Article Fri, Jul 22 2016
Kariya, Japan, July 22, 2016. Israel women’s national team recently travelled to Japan with their long-time mentor Arie Selinger for a training camp where they were joined by the players and coaching staff of Toyota Auto Body Queenseis, one of eight teams competing in Japan’s V.Premier League, the top-level Volleyball league of the Land of the Rising Sun.
The now 79-year-old Selinger, who was at the helm of the women’s and men’s national teams of USA and the Netherlands when they claimed silver medals at the 1984 and 1992 Olympics respectively, has a lot of connections in Japan. Selinger decided to take many Israeli young players to the Far East as Israel have started preparing for the second qualifying stage of the 2017 CEV Volleyball European Championship – Women. Israel are set to play two round-robin tournaments in mid- and late September where they will take on the national teams of Portugal, Slovakia and Croatia, with the eventual winners securing a spot in the Final Round due to take place in 2017 in Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Selinger is currently trying to develop a young team which is physically less imposing than many of its European counterparts and as a result the Japanese camp was designed to learn different, less conventional ways of playing in order to be as competitive as possible on the European stage. Selinger also re-united with Haruya Indo, a long-time friend and a former assistant of his who has recently moved to Toyota Auto Body Queenseis after spending two years with the Osaka Sakai Blazers, a team competing in the men’s V.Premier League.
The Japanese club based in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, will soon welcome back one of the world’s best Volleyball players – Azerbaijan’s Polina Rahimova who recently steered her national team to a historic gold medal in the 2016 CEV Volleyball European League, where she topped the scorers’ charts with a terrific haul of 163 points and received the award for the Most Valuable Player of the competition. Last season, while wearing the shirt of the Japanese team, Rahimova set a mind-boggling record by scoring as many as 58 points of her own in a match of the V.Premier League.
To further raise the profile of this group, the former captain of Japan national team, Erika Araki, has also signed up for the Toyota Auto Body Queenseis and will wear their shirt in the 2016-2017 season.
During their stay in Japan Team Israel visited also another elite club from the V.Premier League, the JT Marvelous.
The now 79-year-old Selinger, who was at the helm of the women’s and men’s national teams of USA and the Netherlands when they claimed silver medals at the 1984 and 1992 Olympics respectively, has a lot of connections in Japan. Selinger decided to take many Israeli young players to the Far East as Israel have started preparing for the second qualifying stage of the 2017 CEV Volleyball European Championship – Women. Israel are set to play two round-robin tournaments in mid- and late September where they will take on the national teams of Portugal, Slovakia and Croatia, with the eventual winners securing a spot in the Final Round due to take place in 2017 in Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Selinger is currently trying to develop a young team which is physically less imposing than many of its European counterparts and as a result the Japanese camp was designed to learn different, less conventional ways of playing in order to be as competitive as possible on the European stage. Selinger also re-united with Haruya Indo, a long-time friend and a former assistant of his who has recently moved to Toyota Auto Body Queenseis after spending two years with the Osaka Sakai Blazers, a team competing in the men’s V.Premier League.
The Japanese club based in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, will soon welcome back one of the world’s best Volleyball players – Azerbaijan’s Polina Rahimova who recently steered her national team to a historic gold medal in the 2016 CEV Volleyball European League, where she topped the scorers’ charts with a terrific haul of 163 points and received the award for the Most Valuable Player of the competition. Last season, while wearing the shirt of the Japanese team, Rahimova set a mind-boggling record by scoring as many as 58 points of her own in a match of the V.Premier League.
To further raise the profile of this group, the former captain of Japan national team, Erika Araki, has also signed up for the Toyota Auto Body Queenseis and will wear their shirt in the 2016-2017 season.
During their stay in Japan Team Israel visited also another elite club from the V.Premier League, the JT Marvelous.