With Serbian coach & bronze at AVC Nations Cup, Indian volleyball is looking up

Mihailovic wants to help – if they would only allow him.

This last week, India’s volleyball team strung together five wins against New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Australia and Bahrain at the AVC Nations Cup and finished with a bronze medal in front of 8,000 Ahmedabad fans, who fell in love with the sport. They qualified for the 12-team AVC Continental Cup in September, and are eligible as Asia’s seventh-ranked team to be sent to the Asian Games, though they’re waiting nervously on the sports ministry’s go-ahead.

Asia’s top teams, Japan, Iran and China were absent in Ahmedabad, and will turn up at Fukuoka, Japan for the Continental Cup. Indonesia defeated India in five sets in the semis, and Mihailovic is drawing up elaborate plans for “revenge”, come September.

But these plans start with polite, bureaucratic ‘Dear Sirs’, in review report mails of the Ahmedabad meet and training proposals for the coming months, sent to officialdom. Making a hundred calls, so his team gets clearances for camps and the Asiad, keeps him busy. It’s mind-numbing, necessary paperwork that needs doing – but it was one of the reasons why the Serb left a cushy Hong Kong gig and marched back to India despite several hurdles during his first stint in 2019.

He doesn’t wish to bicker with federation officials, he is clear.

“The 24 players in the team are the priority. There should be no doubt that they have talent, and work hard. And India can really get very good at this sport,” he pleads.

Winners Indonesia have an evolved league where top foreign names from Italy, Serbia and Poland play and help raise their level, and they won the Asian club championship. Losing to them narrowly in the fifth set was no shame for Indians exposed to the domestic Prime Volleyball League.

Work to do

Mihailovic would also prefer if he gets a nine-week training block – an official camp to train the Indian team to level up on speed, efficiency, precision and quality of reception. He has roped in a performance analyst and a strength and conditioning coach from Italy who’s worked with the best in Europe, besides Indian coaching assistants.

“It’s like starting a revolution,” says the Serb. He has technically improved serves and receptions in the 10 days he got with the team.

But his superpower is patience, and knowing things don’t move as quickly here as they do in Hong Kong.

“I might look young but I’ve been a player and coach for 50 years now, so I’m actually old,” he jokes, adding that he returned to India very reluctantly, but knowing well that he had to, because India spikers were hard-working blokes who needed guidance to develop the physicality of “huge Kazakh guys”, from “technical precision style of Japan” and learn to tackle both.

Word has it that the world body FIVB knew any other coach would run away from India in 2-3 weeks, so Mihailovic was persuaded to return. So far he has been pleasantly surprised with the steering committee running the game, and how officials and players cooperating can yield immediate results, like in Ahmedabad.

“There is talent. Just give us a chance, you’ll see. Last week, Ahmedabad fans made everything special,” he says.

The week had started with some blunt words to his charges. “I told them we absolutely need a medal. Nobody will care about volleyball if you finish fourth, nobody will invest. It’s a good group, but we need support,” he reiterates.

Captain C Jerome Vinith dropped out of engineering to pursue volleyball. Anand Kottarathil followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a libero at Kannur, and John Joseph gave up on javelin to switch to volleyball. Their coach moved countries knowing his boys would move mountains if he asked, just to get better at volleyball. In Ahmedabad, all sacrifices were worth it.