Bernardinho returns to the men’s volleyball team – 12/27/2023 – Sport

Coach Bernardinho, 64, is back with the men’s volleyball team. Responsible for the campaigns that led Brazil to the gold medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and Rio in 2016, he will lead the team until the Paris Games in 2024, announced the CBV (Brazilian Volleyball Confederation).

Coordinator of Brazil’s men’s teams since September, Bernardinho will simultaneously occupy the vacancy left by Renan Dal Zotto shortly after the selection of the team in the pre-Olympic tournament. The then coach asked to step aside citing health reasons.

“I came back to contribute. Renan’s decision was a big surprise, but I really respect his initiative to take care of his health and family. He did a very good job and left the team qualified for the Olympic Games”, said Bernardinho.

Also coach of Sesc Flamengo in the women’s Superliga, Bernardinho will maintain all three performances simultaneously. “The work will proceed in parallel, of course, but I will only talk about selection when the Superliga ends,” he said in an interview on the CBV website.

Bernardinho will represent the country at the Olympic Games for the eighth time. He has one silver as a player (Los Angeles-1984), two bronzes as coach of the women’s team (Atlanta-1996 and Sydney-2000), and two more golds (Athens-2004 and Rio-2016) and two silvers (Beijing-2008 and London-2012) as coach of the men’s team.

“He was already acting as coordinator of the adult and grassroots men’s teams, in an integrated work aimed at the 2024, 2028 and 2032 Games. This project continues, and at this moment, nothing more natural than for him to take over. We invited him and he accepted the challenge of holding both positions until the end of the Olympic cycle”, explained the president of the confederation Radamés Lattari.

Bernardinho had left command of the national team after the gold medal in Rio, in 2016. In the current Olympic cycle, between April 2021 and March 2022, he managed the France team, the host country of the next Games, but resigned citing personal issues and the need to be closer to family.