As a player, Ricardo Santos always had goosebumps at this time of year. One of the most decorated beach volleyball players in the history of the sport, the Brazilian was always excited when the international season was about to start.

And he missed those feelings over the last three years. Now aged 47, the Athens 2004 Olympic champion saw his playing career start to wind down after he moved to the United States and competed almost exclusively on the American AVP.

When the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour starts in March, however, the legendary Ricardo will again be involved with the international game, but this time in a new position after accepting to coach Italian Olympians Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi.

“Returning to international beach volleyball will be very special,” Ricardo told Volleyball World. “I can feel that anxiety not only in myself but in the entire team. It’s the start of a new season and I know exactly how they are feeling. It’s the beginning of another chapter for each of us and we’re trying to make the most of each training session so we’re ready to perform when the season starts.”

Ricardo decided to take his first steps as an international coach in a familiar setting, and arranged for the team’s pre-season to take place in Joao Pessoa, the Brazilian city where he lived for nearly 20 years and spent some of the most important moments of his career. With Rossi being the son of a Brazilian mother and Carambula having grown up in Uruguay, South America was a natural place for all three to start their project together.

The team have trained at the recently created RS2 Volleyball Academy for a few weeks, learning to get to know each other and starting to define the path ahead.

“It’s been a great challenge,” the Brazilian, a four-time Olympian, reflected. “In our first weeks together, I was trying to understand what their routines were like, as that’s something that will help us down the road. It will be a two-way process for us to adapt to each other. The idea is that together we identify the small things that can make them better as a team. They’re a very technical team, who play really fast in offence and we don’t want to change that, but further enhance it. As a coach, I want to be on top of things as well, so I’m in a position to help them improve.”

Besides being able to train outside and in warm weather, something most of their European counterparts can’t do at this time of year, Carambula and Rossi also benefited from the presence of some of the top Brazilian and international teams in Joao Pessoa over the last month.

The Italians were able to practise with the local teams of Andre Loyola/George Wanderley and Vitor Felipe/Renato Lima but also to play against France’s Quincy Aye/Calvin Aye and Youssef Krou/Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, Argentinean brothers Nicolas and Tomas Capogrosso and Chilean cousins Marco and Esteban Grimalt, among others.

“We’ll be in Joao Pessoa for a while,” Ricardo revealed. “There are still a few weeks until our debut in Mexico and we hope to get in a good rhythm until there. We’ve been able to play against some Brazilian and even international teams who came to our training facility too, and that has been extremely helpful.”

The opportunity with the Italians has opened other doors for Ricardo, who coached Brazilians Larissa Franca and Lili Maestrini in the American AVP last season, in his post-playing career. Upon his return to Joao Pessoa, the Olympic champion decided to set up a full-time training facility in the city located in the northeast of Brazil, and that structure has already seen him involved with beach volleyball at different levels.

“When I decided to work with Carambula and Rossi, I put together a great coaching staff to do that,” he added. “We thought that it would be interesting for us to have a permanent training facility here and also to work with other Brazilian and international teams. Things moved fast and recently the Joao Pessoa City Hall invited us to be part of their programme “The Champions of Tomorrow”, which provides unassisted kids with opportunities to get involved in sport. It was a nice surprise and it will be really humbling to help these kids pursue their dreams in the sport in our training facility.”

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