17/08/2017 19:09
Nico & Marco on a mission to get back Switzerland to where they belong
2017 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Jurmala, Latvia, August 17, 2017. Nico Beeler and Marco Krattiger are the only Swiss men’s team competing at this year’s #EuroBeachVolley Final in Jurmala. These young, easy-going, yet extremely polite lads are working hard to help the alpine country live up to their impressive record in the sport – and are trying to fill in the gap left by the golden generation including the likes of the Laciga brothers, Sascha Heyer, Jefferson Bellaguarda and Patrick Heuscher.
Nico and Marco are currently the no. 1 team in Switzerland and they are hoping to help Swiss Volley achieve their strategic goal – to qualify at least one men’s team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Beeler and Krattiger have committed to Beach Volleyball in 2014 – after starting, as almost all of their colleagues, their careers playing indoors. That same year, they won silver at the U22 European Championship in Fethiye, Turkey. “We switched to Beach Volleyball in 2014 and since we are almost the same age, we quite naturally teamed up and won a medal at that championship,” Beeler recalls. “However, you cannot compare an age-group competition with elite Beach Volleyball, since that is a totally different world.”
Nico and Marco have known each other for years – since playing in the Swiss national league and cup with their respective clubs from Näfels and Amriswil. They even stood on opposite sides of the net at one Swiss national cup final. “Swiss Volley have now made a structured plan for the next four, eight years and have identified six players, i.e. three teams, to include in this programme,” Beeler explained. The other members of the group are Michiel Zandbergen/Mirco Gerson and Adrian Heidrich/Gabriel Kissling. The focus is on young, promising players – and Swiss Volley are trying to make sure they grow slowly but surely and will find their way to the international elite.
Interestingly enough, Nico and Marco have joined forces again following their debut season in 2014 after spending two years with different partners – Jonas Kissling and Alexei Strasser, with the latter now playing together with Chevallier on the Swiss tour. “The idea was that we would develop faster by playing alongside more experienced players,” Marco recounts, but eventually Switzerland failed to qualify a men’s team for Rio 2016.
On Thursday, they lost their last match in the pool to home stars Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins (18-21, 13-21) but still advanced to the elimination stage with two wins out of three matches. “I think the first set clearly showed that if we play our best, we can beat anyone here,” Krattiger said. “Unfortunately, we did not have much luck on our side but we remain confident and look forward to the knockout phase. We did not set any minimum goal, and much will now depend on the outcome of the Drawing of Lots – but somewhere in my head a top ten finish is something I have been targeting.”
Beeler and Krattiger seem to have Volleyball in their genes. Almost all of their siblings – they both have two brothers and one sister – have been / are playing Volleyball and Krattiger’s mother has been coaching young girls apart from being a member of the Board of Administration at Volley AMRISWIL. “Originally I played football but came to Volleyball when I was 14, before I joined the youth division of our club at the age of 15, when I started training five to six times a week,” he recalls. His former team, Volley AMRISWIL, made their debut last season in the elite CEV Volleyball Champions League and Marco did not miss their home matches against opponents from Kosovo and Italy. “I also took a selfie with Luciano De Cecco and Ivan Zaytsev when PERUGIA came to Switzerland to play my former team. De Cecco, in particular, has always been my idol because when playing indoors, I used to be a setter,” Marco adds.
Nico and Marco are young lads full of enthusiasm and positive energy and as a result, they know what is next: “Today’s match with the Latvians showed that little details can make the difference when you play at this level. Personally, I think we can be a hard nut to crack for any opponent – and definitely our goal is to play in Tokyo in three years’ time,” Beeler concluded. After Nico could not participate in the Baku 2015 European Games due to injury, where Krattiger finished fifth with Sébastien Chevallier, they certainly want to experience what the Olympics are all about – and help Switzerland get back to where they belong in men’s Beach Volleyball.
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