ALAS Pilipinas head coach Angiolino Frigoni is puzzled at the way Filipino fans behave when watching his team play foreigners. He noted that foreign teams get more cheers than locals.
The 70-year-old Italian, recently hired to put the national team in shape in time for the 2025 FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship, lamented that although Filipino fans are becoming more engaged in the mens’ game, their support seems to gravitate towards foreign teams than their very own national team.
READ: Alas men draw Egypt, Tunisia, Iran in FIVB World Championship
‘Cheer for Filipinos, please’
In the last three Manila legs of the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) to Alas’ recent friendlies with Japan club Osaka Bluteon led by its national team superstar Yuji Nishida, Filipinos seem to be more excited with players from countries like Japan and the United States, among others.
Frigoni hopes this behavior will change in time for the world championship which the country will be hosting next year.
“We are here in the Philippines playing very good. There's a very good atmosphere because Filipinos, they don't cheer only for the locals, but they cheer for everybody,” Frigoni said.
“I would like that the Filipinos start to be a little bit different. Cheers for Filipinos, please. Because when we played against Japan, they were cheering more for Japan than for the Philippines.
“Please, you are Filipinos. Cheer for Filipinos.”
‘Rome wasn't built in a day’
This attitude perhaps stems from the fact that the men's team is hardly in the class of its foreign opponents. But Frigoni assessed that the Philippines can't achieve world class quality overnight.
It will take hard work, discipline and plenty of preparations, he said. To this end, Frigoni has scheduled a two-week training camp in Italy so Filipino players can feel and taste the quality of Italian teams whose whose national squad is the world’s fifth-ranked side and is also the defending world champions.
Frigoni has one year to make something of the Alas Men's team which he hopes will be enough to get them noticed. But he is not promising anything, perhaps wishing to remind those who are following the team that "Rome wasn’t built overnight."
“Even when the World Championship was even far away, more far away. I always said to answer this question, that for us, the World Championship for Philippine Volleyball, for the World Championship, is not the end of volleyball, it's just the start of volleyball.
“And to build a team, and to build a good level team, you need years, not months,” said Frigoni.
The Alas Men's coach added: “This is part of the program that the Federation is supposed to do. So start with this period to build a team and continue after the World Championship. My expectation is to do our best, to compete against everybody, and to fight against everybody and don't give up against anybody.
“That's my expectation of the team. The results, we will see after the World Championship and after every match. “
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