U Mumba Volley

U Mumba Volley is a professional volleyball team that is based in the coastal city of Mumbai and play in the RuPay Pro Volleyball League. The franchise comes from the state of Maharashtra, where volleyball is a very popular sport that has found its root deep in the society. They will be beginning their campaign on the opening day itself against Kochi Blue Spikers on the 2nd of February, at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Kochi.

Tomislav Coskovic, the Bosnian-born Croatian volleyball player, who also holds Turkish citizenship, will be the international icon player for the U Mumba Volley. While officially no captain has been announced, Saqlain Tariq is expected to shoulder the duties. U Mumba Volley will be coached by Pritam Singh Chauhan with the assistant coach being Naresh.

The team players have been tagged as the “Mumboys” in social media, in spirit of the city of Mumbai. They also use the motto of “How’s the josh?” inspired by the Bollywood movie, Uri. The team will be donning the orange colour on their jersey.

Background

The team is owned by U Sports, owned by the first generation entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala, who is known as the mind behind the media and entertainment conglomerate UTV, which was acquired by Disney. U Sports also own the very successful Pro Kabaddi League franchise U Mumba, and is the sister franchise of U Mumba Volley as part of the U Mumba brand.

Key Players

U Mumba has the fearsome international attacking duo of Tomislav Coskovic and Nicholas Del Bianco. Both the attackers have immense experience in both the international and club level. Coskovic has played for clubs in Italy, France, Austria, Russia, Greece, and Turkey. He most recently played for the Turkish club Galatasaray SK. Del Bianco, on the other hand, has represented Canada in several international competitions.

Among the Indian players, Vinit Kumar will be one to watch, as one of players in the country. Dipesh Kumar Sinha, who starred for India at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta-Palembang will also be looking to shine. Young star Saqlain Tariq made history in 2014 by becoming the first player from Jammu and Kashmir to make it to the Asian Championships squad, and he will be the only player from the state to play in the RuPay Pro Volleyball League.

Squad List