The Bulgarian Volleyball Federation has announced the three final candidates for the Bulgarian Female National Team head coach position. They are Ivan Seferinov, Ivan Petkov, and Antonina Zetova. The federation says that the new coach’s main goal is to help the Bulgarian team advance in FIVB’s senior rankings, in which it currently ranks in 17th place, and qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Ivan Seferinov is the team’s current coach. He is a former CSKA Sofia player and earned a fourth place with the Bulgarian team at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Last year he succeeded to qualify the Bulgarian team to the final phase of the 2017 European Championship, in which the team finished 9th after losing its Round of 16 match to Germany in a 3-2 war. It is safe to say that siding with Seferinov again would be a conservative choice.
The 40-year-old Ivan Petkov has had extensive experience with youth national teams in the past. He is the current head coach of Bulgaria’s most successful current volleyball team, Maritsa Plovdiv, which qualified for the final round of the 2018 CEV Champions League, and just finished the regular season of the Bulgarian League undefeated. Petkov’s position in Plovdiv is very comfortable, and he may not accept the job at the national team if he feels he won’t be given enough support and conditions to reproduce the same kind of success as he has with Maritsa.
Lastly, the 44-year-old Antonina Zetova is one of the most successful Bulgarian volleyball players of her generation. She recently coached Bulgaria’s U23 team to a bronze medal finish at the 2017 FIVB Women’s U23 World Champioship. This in itself should be enough qualification for Zetova to get serious consideration for the job.
The new coach will have to lead a core of competent stars in Elitsa Vasileva, Dobriana Rabadzhieva and Gergana Dmitrova in FIVB’s upcoming World Championship, to be held in Japan in October.
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- The Bulgarian Volleyball Federation has recently signed a massive sponsorship deal with Bulgaria’s national lottery.
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