Marck Espejo is returning to Spikers’ Turf action with renewed fire after a once-in-a-lifetime experience in the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.
Espejo, arguably one of the kings of Philippine men’s volleyball, revealed he pondered hanging up his national team jersey after the World Championship, as he thought representing the country for 10 years was already enough.
‘I actually said after the FIVB tournament that I was planning to retire from the national team,’ Espejo said in Filipino.
‘I’ve been part of the national team for about 10 years now, since 2015. And there was a time I felt like there wasn’t much growth or progress in the program, so I thought maybe it was time to step away.’
But after he was able to show the world what the Filipinos are capable of with Bryan Bagunas and the rest of the Alas team with a decent 19th-place finish in the 32-nation championship, highlighted by a historic win over Egypt before a heartbreaking five-set loss to Iran.
The five-time UAAP MVP out of Ateneo realized he’s far from done as far as answering the country’s call as he aims to achieve more for the men’s volleyball program.
‘After the FIVB experience, I realized we actually can compete. There’s so much support coming in, from fans, from people helping the team, and that really motivated me,’ Espejo said.
‘As long as my body can still handle it, I want to keep representing the Philippines. Especially now that I’ve been on the world stage, it feels like I’ve reached a peak in my career, and I’m hungry for more. For the next tournaments, the SEA Games, the Asian Games. I want to fight for medals, reach the podium, and help raise the Philippines’ ranking even higher.’
His impressive showing in the World Championship also raised his standard in Criss Cross’ title quest in the Spikers’ Turf Invitational Conference, which starts on Monday next week at Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
‘Personally, the expectations and pressure are always there. I just focus on performing. I’m expecting even more from myself, to perform better all-around, especially in attacking,’ he said.
‘My performance with the national team during the World Championship was pretty good, and of course, people’s expectations went up after that. But I just want to say, please don’t expect the same ‘world level’ performance here in Spikers’ Turf. In reality, the level of competition is still far from that. But I do hope that everyone-players and coaches-learned something from that experience. I hope we can start to adopt that high-level system, and bring it into the UAAP, NCAA, and even club teams.’
Espejo and the other Alas players will be focusing on their SEA Games preparation once they get a call-up for an overseas training camp, needing to leave their team in the middle of the season.
But the international volleyball star is confident of the King Crunchers’ bid to reach the top this time after losing to Cignal in the past three Spikers’ Turf finals.