Bulgaria’s hosting of the 2018 FIVB Men’s World Championship is captivating the opinions of most of the country’s former athletes. Mila Kiosseva is one of such legends. One of the most decorated Bulgarian volleyball players of all time, she won an European Championship with the national team and two Europeans Cups with iconic Bulgarian club CSKA. She talked about the condition of the sport in her native country on an interview available on Sportal.bg. Here is an excerpt of her most important comments.
“We are a bit far from the European standard of volleyball. If we are not ready to become European champions, we need at least to get closer to the top. First, I think we are not successful because our good athletes are scattered. At the time when we became European champions, we all played in Bulgaria, competed with each other, and we went to many tournaments. Now somehow the contestants are scattered around the world. In my opinion, there is less teamwork than when we played. Less are the opportunities to be together. Second, other countries have advanced too much. We, as a small country, must also be happy with what we are doing now
We have good coaches in Bulgaria, but we need a little more information about what is being done around the world. My hope is that this will happen soon, but I do not know if it will happen.
We have very good athletes. The problem is that we can not go out and show our capabilities when the game is important. We did not play poorly at the European level this past season. We just lost matches that we should not have lost. We have very good headquarters, distributors are also not bad. We have a good team, we just have to be able to win when things get important.”
The Bulgarian Men’s national team is currently ranked 14th in FIVB’s senior rankings, while the women are a bit worse at 17th place.
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