Sergio: Piotr Nowakowski has a perfect serve

Sergio Dutra Santos, or Serginho, as the Brazilian fans call him, is a two-time Olympian who’s part of one of the best teams ever, the Brazilian squad that won almost everything under the command of coach Bernardo Rezende since 2001. The only libero to be awarded MVP in a major tournament (2009 World League), Sergio is going for his third and last Olympics, at the age of 36, eager to repeat the success his team achieved in Athens 2004, after finishing with a silver medal in Beijing 2008. He acknowledges it’ll be tough. “We’re going to fight for the gold, but a lot of teams are very strong”, says the multi-champion and multi-awarded libero. Check out what Sergio told us in this exclusive interview to Blokaut.

- How is Brazil’s national team preparation for the London Games?

Sergio - The preparation is really strong. We work too hard, maybe we are the hardest working team in the world. All those titles we got came as a result of hard work. The gold comes during your preparation, the way you approach every tournament, if you’re really focused.



- In 2011, for the first time since 2001, Brazil didn’t win any major (silver at World League and bronze at World Cup). What happened?

Sergio - The other teams are getting better. Look at the scenario now in 2012. Even those teams considered not so strong have their weapons. Take Canada as an example. This new guy, the opposite (Gavin Schmitt), he reaches the ball very high, he’s extremely strong. The teams have also made progress on blocking and defense. Brazil continues to grow, but the other teams have grown a lot in many ways.


- Team Poland could be a good example of this evolution?

Sergio - We always had tough games against the Poles. We won the 2006 World Championships facing them in the final and the score was 3-0, but the Polish team had made a great tournament, played very well, just doing bad in the end. They’ve always been a strong team. Sooner or later the results would come to the Polish team and now they’re one of the top teams in the world.


- There are too many injuries among Brazilian players. How you will be ready for London?

Sergio - Since I started in the national team back in 2001, I never saw our group going to a tournament with all the players in their full condition. It’s the price we pay for training so hard to be a strong group. We don’t have a player that stands alone, we’re a group. I remember a time when (Ivan) Miljkovic was literally carrying the Serbian team, this not our case. That said, if some players are not ready, like it always happened, the others should be there to fill the gap.


- We are less than two months from the start of the Olympics. Is this period enough for the players to recover?

Sergio - It’s not the ideal. We have only a little time. For example, the World League, we started the competition having trained for a week only, without playing a single friendly match. We arrived in Toronto for the first stop completely without rhythm and that killed us. We’re getting in shape little by little, we’re a little better now. The other teams have some advantage. The Poles had trained a little more and played some friendlies (against Australia), the Finns had arrived from the European Olympic qualifier, same thing with Canada, coming from the Norceca Olympic qualifier.


- On a zero to ten scale, how is Team Brazil now?

Sergio - I’d give us a six. Especially because Bernardinho is making a lot of changes, still trying. He puts Ricardo in to get him in a rhythm, but he needs to give some space to Bruno, too. Wallace is playing very well, but the coach has to make Theo play. Vissotto is almost ready, he’ll play, too. We have too many players and we need to find our best team, see all the options.


- Will Ricardo be ready for the Olympics?

Sergio - Ricardo was out for a long time (five years) of the international scenario. He’s getting better and better. Each game you see his improvement. Little by little he gets more confident and takes more risks, and that’s how he plays, taking risks all the time. He’ll be that Ricardo the world knows in London, I’m sure.


- Bernardo says Brazil’s serve isn’t as good as it should be. What do you think?

Sergio - Our serve isn’t one of the best. Some of our players are really good servers, but in general the team needs to make it better. But you know, several times we won matches even though we were having a terrible day on serve. That’s great, but we need to improve anyway. (laughs)


- Who are the players that are the best servers in the world nowadays?

Sergio - Most people think those strong serves are the hardest to pass. Okay, some of them are really tough to receive, but not them all. There are some players that have a killing float serve, like (Piotr) Nowakowski. His serve is perfect, really hard to pass. Rodrigao also has a very efficient float serve. When the server is able to break the opponent’s reception and makes the things easier for his team block, then he is a good server.


- Brazil will be ready to play their best in London?

Sergio - When you are at the Olympics you can’t hesitate, there’s no time for that. We’ll do our best for sure, we’ll be trying hard. You need to be mentally tough, and we got that. I’ll give you an example. Last year, as we knew we had a lot of serious injuries on the team, more than usual, we traveled to Japan for the World Cup thinking of qualifying to the Olympics. We wanted to win, of course, but the Olympic spot was our main goal, as we aware of our physical limitations due to those injuries and the tournament was going to be long and hard. So we made a different planning than we had for the two previous editions. Those two last matches, against Poland and Japan, we had no strength, we won with our hearts and character. In London we’re going to fight for the gold, but a lot of teams are very strong.


- Such as…

Sergio - Russia is very strong. Italy is strong again, they’re back among the top teams, very confident on their serve, Fei back in the middle and Lasko as one of the best opposites in the world. Poland has a great team, too.

- What about Argentina, pointed by many as a sensation with a beautiful game style?

Sergio - They’re strong on defense, are fun to watch, but they lack power. This limitation prevents them winning against stronger teams. They may beat one of the favourites, but I don’t think they can grab the gold in London.

And what about those three European teams that qualified last weekend? Germany, Serbia, and Bulgaria?
Sergio - Germany is very strong physically, their opposite (Georg Grozer) is playing really well, he’s one of those fantastic hitters some teams have. It’s hard to play against Germany because they’re really tall, but we’ll see what they can achieve.
When you think of guys like the Canadian opposite (Schmitt) or the German one (Grozer), it’s hard to stop them because they go really high, sometimes over the block. It’s nice to see the fight between them and the block near the net, the problem is to dig those guys’ attacks when they go for you. (laughs)


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