Gabi looking forward to helping Brazil in VNL Week 2

A lot of talent will come onboard when outside hitter Gabriela ‘Gabi’ Guimaraes joins Tokyo Olympic silver medallists Brazil for the second week of the Volleyball Nations League 2022 in Brasilia.

· Watch all VNL 2022 matches live on Volleyball TV.

The 28-year-old Gabi was granted a few days vacation to recover from a long and demanding club season with VakifBank Istanbul in Turkey, and first joined the national team on June 6. After a week of practise, however, she is now ready to strengthen the Brazilian team when they face Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy and Serbia at the Nilson Nelson stadium between Wednesday and Sunday.

The Most Valuable Player of the CEV European Champions League, Gabi, who won continental and national titles with VakifBank in 2021-2022, will join a Brazilian team that won three of four Week 1 matches in Shreveport-Bossier City. And she will undoubtedly make the team even stronger when they play in front of their home fans.

“It was important to have those days to rest my body and my mind because it was a long season,” she said in an interview with Brazilian website Na Nossa Rede. “It was a very successful season, but also an extremely demanding one, but I felt ready and was looking forward to joining the team. I hope I can help the other players. It will be a very difficult week for us and I hope the fans come and help us, especially on Wednesday against Turkey.”

Gabi will be even more important to Brazil this season as the team goes through a transition process after last year’s Tokyo Olympics that resulted in the international retirement of some of the team’s most experienced players, including fellow outside hitters Natalia Pereira and Fe Garay and libero Camila Brait.

Volleyball Nations League 2022: Schedule and results

The outside hitter was also chosen by head coach Jose ‘Ze Roberto’ Guimaraes to be the team’s captain in 2022, and she hopes that she can learn from the team’s younger players as much as they will from her.

“I was watching them on TV in the first week and it was exciting to see our new group,” she added. “Being the captain is a new responsibility, but I’m sure it will be really pleasant. This is a group of players who like to work and absorb new information, so I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot in this new stage of my career too.”

Besides Gabi, Ze Roberto has also included outside hitter/opposite Rosamaria Montibeller and middle blocker Julia Kudiess in the Brazilian squad for this week’s VNL action.

Brazil Roster – VNL Week 2

Setters: Macris Carneiro and Roberta Ratzke

Opposites: Kisy Nascimento and Rosamaria Montibeller

Outside Hitters: Gabi Guimaraes, Julia Bergmann, Ana Cristina Souza and Pri Daroit

Middle Blockers: Ana Carolina ‘Carol’ da Silva, Diana Alecrim, Lorena Lorena Viezel and Julia Kudiess

Liberos: Natalia ‘Natinha’ Araujo and Nyeme Nunes

Quick links:
Volleyball Nations League
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Youtube