The Cuban men's volleyball team that will face the 2022 international calendar was unveiled at the Havana Sports City coliseum, with the closest tournament at the Challenger Final Four, scheduled for this weekend in Pinar del Rio.

Havana, June 1 (ACN)-- The Cuban men's volleyball team that will face the 2022 international calendar was unveiled at the Havana Sports City coliseum, with the closest tournament at the Challenger Final Four, scheduled for this weekend in Pinar del Rio.

The selected players are the opposing attackers Michael "El Ruso" Sanchez and Marlon Yant, and the corners Miguel David Gutierrez, Osniel Mergarejo, Miguel Angel Lopez, Julio Cesar Cardenas and Jose Miguel Gutierrez.

Completing the roster are center backs Roami Alonso, Javier Concepción and Livan Osoria, passers Christian Thondike, Adrián Goide and Lyvan Taboada, and libero Jonder García.

Nicolas Vives, technical director of the team, explained in a press conference that they have been training for a week and everyone is very motivated in general, and ready to compete from the 3rd to the 5th of November at the 19 de Noviembre venue.

About the preparation stage, especially the last stage, he said that they worked on the physical aspect and cohesion. Communication and teamwork are very important, he said.

In the competition "we will have the opportunity to make some changes and see some players we want to see. We will have the possibility for everyone to play in this tournament".

The fundamental objective is to reach the first place, it gives us the possibility to be next year in the 2023 World Challenger, Vives pointed out.

"This 2022 we have some very important competitions like the South Korea World Challenger and the goal is to win it, and next year to be inserted in the Nations League."

"Then we will have the World Cup, the second most important tournament after the Olympics. It will be extremely strong, but we are ready to play a good role".

On the participation Roberlandy Simon expressed that he will not be there because he recently finished the Italian league. "He came back tired and we decided to give him a few days of rest to recover."

Ariel Saínz, vice president of the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation and head of the Cuban Federation of this sport, officially welcomed the players who returned from their foreign leagues in various continents, which has contributed significantly to their technical development, he added.

He said that this selection will have five major events, some of which will provide sufficient elements to consider how they are today in the face of the universal elite. These are the cases of the World Challenger in South Korea and the world event.

Saínz added that others are on the road to qualifying for the Central American and Caribbean Games and the Pan American Games in 2023.