The city of Antwerp has recognised No Blockers as an official sports club of the municipality. As such, No Blockers joins a network of more than 350 clubs in the city and commits to keep fulfilling the requirements for this label.
What does this recognition mean?
For No Blockers, being recognized as an “erkende sportclub” by Stad Antwerpen is an acknowledgment that our club meets the city’s standards for a safe, well-run sporting environment, including criteria such as a verified safety scan and a meaningful presence in Antwerp. This recognition also makes the club eligible for the city’s sport subsidies, which cover everything from basic funding and participation support to sports-technical development, equipment, and infrastructure grants. This makes it easier for us to grow and welcome more players to the first international volleyball club of Antwerp. It’s a milestone that reflects the hard work of everyone involved in building our club, and a strong foundation for what comes next.
What’s next?
No Blockers will proudly display this quality label across our communication channels and will continue to meet — and where possible exceed — the requirements of the recognition. The recognition is valid for 2 years and No Blockers intends to renew it afterward. We’re grateful to the Sportservice team of the City of Antwerp for making this label possible and for supporting us throughout the process. Antwerp is our homebase and as the first international volleyball club of the city, we continue to be a meeting point, place of exchange and integration for all people.
No Blockers organises their first tournament as a club on August 8th, 2026. A total of 14 teams will be admitted to the matches that will take place in Sporthal Fort 8 in Antwerp. Here is all you need to know about the event.
Why this tournament is special
Next to the event being our first tournament as a club, we have arranged referees for the matches so that competing teams do not need to provide one. Furthermore, the matches take 25 minutes and teams will get a lot of playtime with the only long break being the lunch break. Sporthal Fort 8 itself is special because it hosts a centre court, where the grand finals will be played on. Preparations are already on the way to organise personalised trophies, generous lunch packages and volunteers. Our volunteers will be working hard to keep track of the administrative side of the tournament, take photos, do interviews and be the referees.
Join us!
This is an excellent opportunity to challenge and test your team’s strength, endurance and performance levels in a competitive environment before the 2026/27 season kicks off in September. To join the tournament, you can simply click or tap the link below and register your team. Note that one woman needs to be on the court all the time and that your team will be insured through No Blockers’ sports insurance for worry-free play!
June 10, 2026 | Club development | ~2min read time
No Blockers vzw and TALENTA+ Foundation have entered a strategic partnership for the competitive season 2026-2027. The duration of the agreement is set to one year but can be prolonged.
About Talenta+
TALENTA+ is a sports management and strategy organisation headed by Tawfeek Zen Alabden. Its professionals have more than 15 years of experience in tailoring competition and training strategies to the needs and demands of sports clubs. TALENTA+’s motto is: everyone has a talent that can be nurtured through fun and performance.
No Blockers supports their players and wants to offer real and sustainable growth opportunities to all individuals to build strong and successful competitors. Talenta+ will develop training plans for No Blockers based on state-of-the-art sports science and individual as well as team performance insights. Furthermore, they will co-organise tournaments and help us promote volleyball towards people from diverse backgrounds. With this move, we professionalise our trainings allowing for more structure and strategy. The specifics of the training and competition plans and procedures around will be discussed in July and shared internally.
Partners with a higher purpose
Rooted in Antwerp, Talenta+ is an excellent local partner with a vast network in the sports sector and clear societal mission: to offer inclusion and integration of newcomers through sports. Given our own origin story, No Blockers backs up this approach and commits to supporting Talenta+ with available resources.
The strategic partnership agreement is signed. From left to right: Luka Paul Vethake (treasurer No Blockers), Tawfeek Zen Alabden (Founder TALENTA+), Sohel Zin Alaabidin, chairman No Blockers vzw)
Everything has an origin. The story of No Blockers, Antwerp’s first international volleyball club, begins thousands of kilometres away in Homs, Syria, where our founder Sohel Zin Alaabidin lived the first part of his life. This is the story of the first No Blocker; this is our story.
The past shapes the present
I inherited the passion for volleyball from my father. My father was a volleyball player at Al Karama Club, Al Karama Club, one of the most historic and successful sport clubs in Syria. Founded in Homs in 1928, Al Karama built a long legacy through numerous national titles and generations of athletes who represented the club across different sports, especially volleyball. My father regularly took me with him to the men’s training sessions from a young age not to watch, but to train.
Left: My father playing for Al Karama Volleyball Club in Homs, Syria Right: Al Karama Club logo
At the age of 14, I officially began playing with the men’s team, alongside my father. Looking back at our time at Al Karama, I sometimes wonder how far that path could have gone under different circumstances.
Receiving my first medal as a volleyball player
But with the beginning of the 2011 Syrian war, everything changed in an instant. The fields were closed and daily life itself became unstable. Everything that happened during and after that war completely changed the course of our lives.
During that period, I started discovering who I was outside the sports halls. At the time, I had two options: either I would side with the dictatorship and take up arms against my own people, or I would join the resistance and carry a weapon as needed defence. It was then that I realized I did not want to carry a weapon at all, no matter the reason. Instead, I chose to work with the Red Cross and carried out more than 600 missions, working on the ground to help people.
With Red Cross colleagues in Homs, 2012
I faced countless situations that nearly killed me, including a serious injury that left me close to death. I barely escaped but injured my shoulder and my thigh. Yet, after all those years, I was still ordered to immediately report for military service.
This is when I knew that I had to leave Syria. I left everything and set out to cross the sea, not knowing if I would reach a place where I could live, or if my life would end right there in the sea.
The beginning in Brussels
When I arrived in Belgium in 2014, I was not completely detached from the war and everything that had happened. Despite this, near my apartment in Brussels was a small court where I would go to watch people play volleyball. Remembering and feeling my injury from back in Syria, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to play again. But I gathered my courage and looked for a volleyball group to play with. The first time I stepped onto the court was overwhelming. I remembered who I was and for the first moment, I felt the power of that place. At first, I wasn’t at my best because I was still trapped in my thoughts. Then, with the first serve I made, everything came back to me in a second. From that moment, I began playing regularly and built wonderful friendships in Ghent, Leuven, Brussels and Antwerp. After a while, I moved to Antwerp for work and I began to build a community of volleyball-loving friends.
No Blockers is born
The friends I made in Antwerp came from all over the world, boasting 25 different nationalities. Somehow, that diversity brought us closer together. We started participating in tournaments in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands. At some point, we realized we needed a name for our team. That’s when “No Blockers” was born. The name was inspired by the word “block” in volleyball, but for us it meant much more. Although we came from different cultures, religions and backgrounds, there were no barriers between us: No Blockers, so to say. What started out as a group of friends eventually evolved into something much bigger. In 2025, seeing how much love, energy, and time we all invested into the team, we decided to officially create No Blockers as Antwerp’s first international volleyball club.
Our international No Blockers family
A future we invite you to
I once believed that my dream and my journey with volleyball had ended with the closing of those fields in Homs. But through the efforts of every member of No Blockers, my dream found its way into the light. By connecting our strengths and our love for volleyball, we created a new, more powerful path. Today, we want to leave a mark in this world for everyone who loves this sport, so that they will always have a place to play, a place filled with hope and life.
What sets our club apart are our people. Dedicated club members like Fabio, Begüm and Mladen, who want to contribute and help our players at becoming better. They combined their strengths; statistics, physiotherapy and volleyball coaching, to develop a fitness app for our players.
The idea behind the app
Recently, our players filled out a survey in which they indicated previous and current injuries. Based on the results, and data from more than 20 matches, the project group developed a personalised plan for each player. The training content is personalised and the exercises take 1min each with 30 second breaks in between and feature a clear instruction video. The player can do the exercises daily and mark them completed so that the coaching team can see the progress. The exercises change every week based on development and training needs.
Impressions of the interface of the volleyball fitness app on desktop, tablet and phone.
The participation is voluntary and the data will not be collected. Fabio says: “we saw this more as a nice add-on for our teammates and the way we train.” Mladen adds: “this fitness tracker will not determine nor influence decisions on how we fill positions for matches. Everyone will as always get the same opportunity to play and to develop together.” The exercises follow modern standards of physiotherapy and are chosen with great care by dr. Begüm Okudan: “we made sure that all of the exercises help with individual muscular deficits but also focus on the core needs of volleyball, namely explosiveness, agility and strength”.
The future of our trainings
This app is not meant to revolutionise our trainings, but it ties in with the data usage project that we started this season. As a growth-oriented club, we are always on the lookout for new trends and ways of improving the sport we love. This digitisation project is not doomed to end in a mixed augmented reality situation or some sort of cybernetic training procedures. Volleyball is still physical and enjoyed by humans – this will always remain the same. However, we will keep developing this project as we keep developing our club enshrined in our motto: No fear. No limits. No Blockers.
Once a No Blocker, always a No Blocker. Our middle blocker Ahmad moved from Deurne to Dubai in October. Here is how he kept his passion for volleyball and what has changed since his move.
Adapting to the weather
Firstly, Ahmad had to acclimatise to the desert heat during the day and the low temperatures during the night. Another change he made, very fittingly, was switching from indoor to beach volleyball. At this time of the year, Dubai sees around 30 degrees Celsius without a single cloud in sight. Playing at the shores of Dubai with sights like the Burj Al Arab nearby sounds tempting, given the sometimes depressingly grey winter weather here in Belgium.
Changing habits
Now, beach volleyball requires a different skillset than normal volleyball. Ahmad is using his experience as middle blocker to his advantage. With over 1.90m in height, blocking of course comes to him naturally and is his biggest advantage. Though he says that you need to be a lot more mobile and move around the field more when compared to indoor volleyball. It requires a certain “quick on your feet” mindset. He also says that you need to set a lot more, something middle blockers are acquainted to, but it is definitely not their core strength.
Beach volleyball in Dubai
Ahmad says that beach volleyball is pretty popular in Dubai. Most of the time he and his friends rent out a field privately. The are plenty of small private businesses that offer this service, but there are also publicly accessible fields. Sometimes, he just goes to the beach and finds people who are setting up their own net and then he joins the group.
A vigorous No Blockers supporter
Ever since he has moved, Ahmad is still supporting us and our mission in Antwerp. Our match livestreams, Instagram account and our WhatsApp community help him stay connected with the team and our challenges, wins and developments. Who knows, maybe one day we will open a subsidiary of No Blockers in Dubai!
First steps in the sand for No Blockers
On Saturday, March 7th, No Blockers will hold its first internal beach volleyball tournament in Leuven. Our players will have 4 hours of getting to know the basics and playing friendly matches against each other. Hopefully, this sets the first step towards 1 or 2 competitive beach volleyball teams for No Blockers in the next season, so stay tuned!
Edit March 2026
In light of the recent events in the Gulf region, Ahmad has let us know that he is safe and that life has somewhat adjusted to occasional alarms, strikes and interceptions. No Blockers wishes everyone who is affected by the conflict continued safety and a swift end to the violence.
We have many goals, and developing our own merch was one of them. In January, we finalised the designs and agreed on the products. Now, our players have received the items and are genuinely happy with the outcome. But why did we create our merch in the first place?
Listening to our players
First and foremost, our players repeatedly asked for club merch because everyone felt a real need for a hoodie and training jacket for warm-up exercises. On top of that, we wanted to be able to show where we belong via a shared way of clothing and expose our brand to the public.
Demonstrated togetherness
The impression we create on our opponents when entering the sports hall together, wearing our clubwear, is higher than when everyone just wears something different. It demonstrates that we are one cohesive team and stand together.
Celebrating No Blockers
The club merch is also a nice way of rewarding ourselves for the past few months which have been hectic at times, but always successful. We love No Blockers and we want the club to grow, so having merch is another step to make those ambitions a reality. The merch is only available to club members for now, but this might change in the future.
We are happy to announce that No Blockers is now finally and officially a registered vzw (vereniging zonder winstoogmerk) in Belgium!
Why does this matter?
Becoming a vzw is more than a change in letters. As a feitelijke vereniging (fv), we were regarded a group of people coming together for a shared goal or purpose under the eyes of the law. However, we always felt that No Blockers is destined for more. Becoming a vzw means commitment, institutionalisation and development to us.
Commitment because we commit to the values and principles of our club enshrined in our constitution, democratic governance and code of conduct. This step also signals to our opponents, competition leagues and sport federations that we have our feet on the ground and are here to stay and grow.
Institutionalisation is a chunky word, but we hope that our members and the general public will come to see No Blockers not only as a club with a purpose, but also as an institutional authority in Antwerp with a strong commitment to bring together volleyball players from all skill levels, roles and backgrounds.
Lastly, this officialisation will enable us to sell our own merch, contracting sponsors and carry out a variety of other financial activities. The board will reconvene soon to review No Blockers’ future path and growth strategies.
The process
We considered becoming a vzw in early 2025, but there was simply too much on our plate and we had to focus on very real organisational questions of logos and teamwear. The project however never came to a complete standstill. Luka co-authored the constitution (onderhandse akte) in the months to follow and took over the process of changing our judicial form. With the new year’s energy we decided to make a push and, after a lot of proofreading, hand in our request which was promptly accepted.
What is next?
We’re still the same old club with the same outstanding people and principles. No Blockers will accept sponsors for the 2026/27 season soon and hold its first general assembly in August. We are currently also working on getting recognised as an official sports club (erkende sportclub) in Antwerp. Bear with us, watch our livestreams or support us live at matches and never forget: No fears. No limits. No Blockers.
Everybody was impressed by the accuracy and visualisation of match data during the FIVB World Championships this year. So how do we collect data, how do we use it and what does it mean for the team?
Making data accessible
Data has become a staple in professional volleyball. We are used to impressive animations of ball in/ball out, reception accuracy visualisations and seeing what positions the setter trusts in the most to make a kill. As a club in Sporta IV our means are limited, but not our willpower and imagination. Of course we do not possess wearable sensors, high-frame cameras and powerful statistical software, but we got our very own data-wiz; Fabio.
He took it into his own hands to find a pragmatic solution to collect, process and visualise data about our matches. Fabio used open-source app framework Stream Lit and an AI tool to build our No Blockers dashboard infrastructure. The process involves the creation of Excel files designed to capture specific data from the games. This custom information is manually collected and then uploaded to generate the match data.
How we collect data about our players and our team
The system was designed to capture custom information about games, specifically details per player, such as attacks, kills, misses, sets, serve receptions, digs, and blocks. This level of detail allows for a comprehensive analysis of individual player performance.
Team performance is also a key aspect of the system, with data collected on points won when serving and receiving, as well as the length of rallies to determine if the team performs better with quick or longer points. The length of rallies is categorised into the number of hits, such as three, four, or five hits, providing insight into the team’s strategy and effectiveness.
Team dashboard in Stream Lit
Rendering insights in a dashboard
A backend code is used to clean the data and match it to the right formats for calculations, enabling the creation of graphs, numbers, and charts for each Key Performance Indicator (KPI). For every KPI, there is a calculation using the collected data, ensuring that the insights gained are accurate and reliable.
Team ranking dashboard in Stream Lit
The dashboard is designed to be user-friendly, where all that is required is to upload the Excel file containing the manually captured game data. Once uploaded, the data is automatically populated, providing instant access to the analysed information.
Individual dashboard in Stream Lit
Future development and use of the software
The system is currently in its first version, with plans to expand and improve KPIs and tracking methods as it evolves. We are also evaluating more granular and nuanced ways of collecting data. For example, when it comes to attack kills, there are several types of kills we could take into account: side out, attack in the net, attack blocked, easy attack, strong attack but defended and so on. We are also looking at possible speech recognition options for easier data collection. The ultimate goal is to gain deeper insights into the game, identifying areas where the team needs to focus its training. The system automatically suggests coach insights and recommendations based on the statistics it analyses, making it a valuable tool for strategic decision-making.
For more information, live stream and player interviews follow us on Instagram and TikTok!
Antwerp is home and hub to many international professionals and students. No Blockers is the first international volleyball club in Antwerp, founded to bring people from all cultures together on and off the court through the passion for the sport. In just 4 months, we developed the club and materialised the dream that began in 2022.
Humble beginnings
Three years ago, a small group of friends organised regular games together but when competing in their first tournament in Delft, they had to come up with a team name. None of the no-blockers at the time was particularly tall, so they decided to call themselves ‘No Blockers’. And just like so, the name was born on April 11, 2022. The group continued playing at tournaments and some of the players also were involved in organising local international volleyball games in Antwerp. This is also where things took a steep development curve.
In May 2025, two members took the initiative to register No Blockers as an official club with Sporta. Up until then, internationals had loosely organised regular matches via MeetUp and WhatsApp groups, but the family element was missing; with increasing numbers of international players, people were looking for belonging.
The 4-month miracle
It’s incredibly hard to grasp – even for us – but it took only 4 months to materialise the dream that the founding partners set into the world in 2022. From designing our logo, getting our teamwear and setting up our website and socials as well as organising trainings and securing a permanent field for our home matches. We will elaborate more about this process in future blogs.
Focus on internationals
No Blockers took a steep development curve to become the first international volleyball club in Antwerp. Yet, at its heart, No Blockers has remained loyal to its premise: to offer safe, fun and inclusive volleyball activities specifically for the international community of Antwerp. With players from more than 15 countries we celebrate diversity and bring out the best in everyone.
If you have moved to Antwerp from abroad to study or to work, No Blockers offers you the opportunity to exercise while effortlessly making new friends.
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