Mac went higher than my hopes for the future *ago

'This has been a major change for these young boys, I mean Amsterdam is a big, cool city but most of them come from very small villages, so that was a big change already in their lives,' says Zwerver. Having identified the best young talents, the Dutch Volleyball Association (NeVoBo) houses them in Amsterdam, where they combine their studies with training. 'To cope with the standards and requirements of modern Volleyball I decided to concentrate only on players with a minimum height of 1.95m, otherwise we won't have any chance to be competitive in the future, not just in this age group, but especially as soon as the guys turn professional.' Explaining his work, he says: 'I started on this project in January and have been driving across the Netherlands, covering thousands of kilometres in my own car, to visit Volleyball clubs, even in small villages, looking for talented players to add to our roster.

An Olympic gold medallist in 1996, he is focused today on laying the foundations for future achievements. But if Zwerver, widely regarded as the Netherlands' greatest player, defined his success on the Volleyball court by medals won, that is not the case in his current role as national youth coach - or at least not yet. The Jong Orange eventually missed out on a medal when, having lost their semifinal to Bulgaria, they suffered a five-set defeat by Serbia in the match for third place. A measure of Ron Zwerver's success so far with the next generation of Netherlands men's Volleyball players came when the Dutch federation had to re-book their return flight from September's CEV Junior European Championship after they stayed in Belarus longer than expected by reaching the final four.

Mac went higher than my hopes for the future *ago