Lima Volleyball Alliance | “I didn’t make it to the finals yet, I came to be a champion”, Cenaida Uribe and the story that transformed Alianza to win the volleyball league | LNSV | Game-Total

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While we know the faces that make up this team in detail – from captain Esmeralda Sánchez to last-minute Marina Prambila – her side has the brains of Senaida Uribe. It came at the end of 2022, as the players put it, to “impose their competitiveness” and organize the ideas they had a little. And he did it with pressure to chase the title. It’s that or nothing.

“When I arrived they had already made two finals, what was left for me? I didn’t make many finals, coming as a champion. Unfortunately we finished second again, but now it’s our turn,” Cenaida tells us, last season Clarivett Yllescas and Maeva Orlé , who ended up as the league’s MVP.

In the last decade, when Cenaida was successful in San Martin, Alianza was not yet fully committed to volleyball. “Now it’s different and it’s a general restructuring,” he tells us, adding that his contribution is not only in working with the first team, but also in terms of discipline. “It’s from the ground up. We have 9, 10, 11 to 15-year-old girls working. We train 250 girls every week. In terms of education, we’ve got almost 400 girls this year,” she tells us.

This is the other step that Alianza is taking, its bases feeding the first team, which it did with Esmeralda Sánchez and Esmeralda Llorona, who have been at the club for more than ten years. So many more names are expected to be added to the list.

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With a silver medal in Seoul 88 and experience as a notable volleyball player who played a decade in Italy, Cenaida knew how to understand what the team needed. “I put pressure on them by giving them what they need: nutrition, psychologist, everything. Being a little strict. They wanted to go to the stadium to watch the football team, and I didn’t say no. It ends at 11, play tomorrow. No stadium. They understood that. They did,” he tells us.

So several rules were put into place to keep the group aligned: no lateness, no mistakes, no cell phones, and no discipline. “We have made them aware of the responsibility they have,” says Senaida.

Putting a team together wasn’t easy, but Alianza did it to move the project forward. “The team learned to live together, each understood what the other was like, and each had three captains, where each was responsible for each other,” he tells us of Esmeralda, Marina and Savelita’s work.

With this, Alianza broke a 31-year wait and won the title for the first time in a league format (since 2002). Now they aim for more, though they know the challenge is greater. “Definitely there will be high expectations, not only for the local competition but also for the international competition.” More precisely, next year they will compete in the South American Club Championship. “We need to strengthen the team because we will improve what we can – about the last third places in the regattas – but we have to take into account the position of Brazil,” he says.

Cenaida is already working on it, but now the whole blue and white city is celebrating. And they deserve it.