Aby Maraño, team captain of the Philippine women's volleyball team, hopes to absorb a different kind of playing style and knowledge once they kick off their training camp in Brazil next month.
Still busy with the ongoing 2022 Premier Volleyball League Open Conference, Maraño said she and fellow national team members are using their conditioning in the league as a springboard for the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Maraño said this would be the first time that the national time will be able to travel for a training camp outside of Asia.
"For the longest time na nasa national team ako, 'yong mga laging natutunan namin 'yong kung paano ang way of playing ng Japan, Thailand, or Vietnam," said Maraño, a national team mainstay for the past seven years since 2015. "Pero ngayon panibago na namang knowledge about volleyball 'yong matutunan namin.
"Siyempre Brazil is always the team na top sa volleyball many times. Sobrang tagal nilang namayapag sa larangan na 'yan sa Olympics. I guess magiging karagdagan to para sa national team ng women's," added Maraño, who suits up for the F2 Logistics Cargo Movers in the PVL.
The Brazilian women's volleyball squad currently ranks No. 2 in the FIVB Senior World Ranking, next to top Team USA, while China trails at third.
For the record, the Brazil team won back-to-back gold medals in the Olympics, namely in the 2008 edition in Beijing and the 2012 London Games. It also copped multiple silver medals in the World Championships and the World Cup.
"Nilo-look forward ko ma-apply namin 'yong mga matututunan namin sa Brazil. Pero of course, 'yong knowledge na natutunan namin for the past training camps that we had in Japan, if you put it together, I guess that it will be a very huge thing for us mapag-mix up 'yon," added Maraño.
Last September, PNV president Tats Suzara named Odjie Mamon as head coach for the women's squad led by Marano. The federation also tapped the services of Brazilian Jorge Edson Souza de Brito, member of Brazil's 1992 Barcelona Olympic gold-medal winning team, as a consultant.