CASTING COUP
Nxled continued its recruitment frenzy with its most spectacular haul yet and then embraced the expectations that came with the latest additions to its vastly revamped roster.
The star-filled signings, in fact, produced a beautiful dilemma for Chameleons’ coach Ettore Guidetti—nothing that will cause him sleepless nights, though.
“Honestly, I faced worse problems in the last 10 to 15 years,” the Nxled mentor said in a press conference where the Chameleons welcomed to their fold three-time Premier Volleyball League MVP Brooke Van Sickle, two-time Finals MVP MJ Phillips, veteran hitter Myla Pablo and rookie setter Jules Tolentino on Thursday.
With a glut of talent at his disposal, it will now be a matter of trying to mold everyone into a cohesive unit.
“That’s a good problem,” Guidettie said.
“The only way for the team to play together is to use my ideas and to connect as simple as possible the Nxled way to play to the Petro way to play,” he added. “We have a lot of things in common, some things to switch. I think there is time enough, so we’re going to start on building up the system.”
‘Super humble’
Guidetti is glad that the new additions have shown their willingness to learn his system ahead of the 2026 PVL All-Filipino Conference starting on Jan. 31.
“We knew 100 percent that Nxled is a family-type team and we are very, very happy to find another team [of players] that is a family, too,” the Italian coach said.
“They are veterans, yes, they are the girls that won the last two conferences on three, but the truth is that what I found is [that the] girls [are] willing to be better, super humble with a lot of humility, open-minded and so it’s super simple to coach [them].”
Before the last batch of recruits, Nxled announced the signings of ex-Angels Jonah Sabete, Djanel Cheng, Ranya Musa, Nicole Tiamzon, AA Adolfo, Bang Pineda and Jellie Tempiatura and other free agents in former Chery Tiggo players Aby Maraño and Joyme Cagande and ex-Choco Mucho middle blocker Aduke Ogunsanya.
Nxled had a winless Reinforced Conference and only won two of its 13 games in the All-Filipino Conference.
Now they are expected to do more.
“We all know that so that’s our goal: to bring this team … to the top of the rank, to try to play finals and to have as many finals as possible in the next years.
“I know it’s a big responsibility. Maybe some crazy Italian guys have to take it,” said the Chameleons coach.
Van Sickle, who is thankful for Nxled for giving them a new home, said they wanted to stick together and pick up from where they left off
“We’re definitely keeping our spirits up and we’re just really grateful that the core decided to stick together and by no means we were not forced,” she said.
“I know there were a lot of allegations being said, but we kind of all, as players, like have a common goal that we make sure that the core sticks together and continue to build something special, especially with the Nxled group,” Van Sickle added. “We think we can do that. It was all part of the plan, I guess. Things happen, it’s uncontrollable and you just gotta be optimistic and still [be] hungry.”
Guidetti already sees the positive impact of the Angels on their holdovers.
“I immediately noticed that some of them already improved in the last three days because they were simply taking [the new girls] as an example,” said Guidetti, who has been coaching for 32 years.
