Alas Pilipinas team captain Jia De Guzman knows the urgency of making adjustments in a short period as they start their 2024 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Challenge Cup campaign this Thursday.

De Guzman said there’s no time to waste as they prepare to face the Australians to open their Group A bracket campaign, followed by matches with India, Iran and Chinese Taipei in the next few days.

“From day one, as seniors, we huddled everyone together just to say that we don’t have a lot of time to prepare for the tournament next week so as much as we can, we’ll communicate with each other,” De Guzman said in an interview with One Sports.

“If there’s something to adjust, if there’s something that needs to be changed, we should say it immediately so we don’t waste any time.”

The team, composed of De Guzman, who recently returned to the country from her fruitful stint in the Japan V.League, Premier Volleyball League stars, and University Athletic Association of the Philippines standouts, started their first training session last Thursday.

De Guzman, however, said the Alas Women shrugged off the pressure of going up against teams with lengthy preparations as they focus on the team’s long-term goal.

“If you put us together, individually we’re very strong. But we’re going up against teams who have been together for months, for years, who had much more preparation than we did,” De Guzman said.

“We haven’t had a lot of team drills together but hopefully as we progress next week, every game we play, we will pick something up from it. We’re not putting pressure on ourselves for next week. We’re looking at it long-term. Leading up of course, to the SEA Games next year.”

Meanwhile, De Guzman also gave kudos to the young guns, including Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 85 champions Angel Canino, Thea Gagate, and Julia Coronel from De La Salle University who all brought their A-game.

“It’s a privilege to be part of this lineup filled with talents from different generations. Our joke here is that we are the young and (they are the) younger,” De Guzman said.

“We learned so much even from the kids, from the young ones in this lineup. Because they’re all very eager, they have so much energy. And physically, they are so strong. So whatever we make them do, they can do it immediately.”

The 2024 AVC Challenge Cup champion will qualify for the 2024 International Volleyball Federation Challenger Cup in July, where teams collide for a berth in the prestigious Volleyball Nations League.