The passing legend Mikko Esko’s career continues in AHC Volley Ljubljana, where in addition to his hard playing contribution, he also has the role of assistant coach. The club’s manager praises the new acquisition.
One of Finland’s all-time team ball athletes Mikko Esko46, is a man of surprises. A great playing career was thought to have ended when the man accepted the job of GM of national team operations at the Finnish Volleyball Federation last spring and became the head coach Olli Kunnarin as a pair of horns.
What else. At the beginning of last week, Esko announced that it had signed a player contract with the club, which on November 12 will start its career in the volleyball Champions League.
On Wednesday of this week, the club turned out to be Slovenian AHC Volley to Ljubljana. The dimensions of the deal made by the passing legend are revealed in one detail: AHC’s other passes Nejc Kozar is 21 and Nejc Najdic 18 years old, born in 2003 and 2006.
Mikko Esko, on the other hand, was the Rookie of the Year in Finland’s main league in 1998. In 2000, he began his long career in the Finnish national team, where his playing career will most likely end in the fall of next year at the World Cup. Under them, Esko turns 47 years old.
Slovenia is already the seventh country where Esko puts balls on the wood chipper’s tray as a profession.
Superlatives from the manager
On Thursday, Urheilu caught up with the Manager of Esko’s new employers’ association by Bostjan Vercic. He did not spare his words when evaluating the new confirmation of the 20-time Slovenian champion.
– He visited Slovenia a few weeks ago, and the sight was amazing. He is still physically in absolutely animal condition. I don’t know how to put my words about such an athlete. I simply run out of words, the manager gushed.
Bostjan Vercic says that Mikko Esko has been acquired primarily to play in the Slovenian team, which plays in the Champions League in the same starting group with the Belgian Maaseik, the Polish Projekt Varsova and the German Berlin RV.
But the Finnish star is also expected to make another, forward-looking contribution.
– Without a doubt, he is also wanted for us to support coaching, as a kind of assistant coach to teach our young passers. If they don’t learn from Mikko Esko what it takes to play professionally at the top, I can’t think of who they could learn from, says Vercic, who is five years younger than Esko.
Until 2011, AHC Volley, which played in the city of Bled, 55 kilometers from Ljubljana, is a dominant club in Slovenia, but according to the Manager, the current version is still quite inexperienced to succeed in the Champions League. Mikko Esko’s experience will be needed in the tough opening block.
The club plays and trains in the legendary Hala Tivoli arena, built in 1965, where ice hockey, basketball and handball are also played. In Slovenia’s internal pecking order, volleyball is considered the third most popular sport after football and basketball.
Since 2015, the country has won no less than three EC silver and one bronze in men’s volleyball.
– In the Champions League, we usually get 5,000 spectators to Hala Tivoli. We will take the biggest games to the new arena in Ljubljana, says the manager.
Stozice Sports Park Arena, completed in 2010, has a spectator capacity of 12,000.
The quality of life in the compact capital of small Slovenia is high.
– If Mikko wants, he can live right in the city center, a short walk from Hala Tivoli, says manager Vercic.