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Despite playing in front of home crowds, Palembang Bank Sumsel Babel has set the modest goal of a top-eight finish in the Asian Men’s Club Volleyball Championship, which starts on Saturday at Sriwijaya Sports Hall in South Sumatra.

Bank Sumsel, which won its first-ever Indonesian Pro League (Proliga) trophy last season, hosts 11 other clubs from the region that qualified by winning the league championships in their home countries.

“We’ve trained for just two weeks since the league season ended in May, so we have to be realistic. First, we want to advance from the group stage to the last-eight round and see what happens next,” assistant coach Dadang Sudrajat said on Friday. “It’ll be good if we could finish better than [BNI 46] last year.”

BNI 46, which represented Indonesia in the championship last year, finished ninth.

Bank Sumsel has been drawn in Group A with Etisalat (Afghanistan), PTSC (Vietnam), Sakai Blazers (Japan), Tang Dynasty (China) and Uzbektelecom (Uzbekistan).

Defending champion Paykan of Iran is in Group B with Almaty (Kazakhstan), Asia World Club (Burma), Ar-Rayyan (Qatar), Chang (Thailand) and Talyp Sport (Turkmenistan).

The top four from each group will go to the quarterfinals. Bank Sumsel starts the tournament against PTSC on Saturday.

“We need at least three victories to qualify from the group. I think we have a good chances against PTSC, Etisalat and Uzbektelecom, [but] China and Japan will be tough to beat,” Dadang said.

The club received a boost from the national team’s decision to loan six of its members to Bank Sumsel for the championships

“It will be good warm-up for [national team players] before the Southeast Asian Games,” Dadang said.

The tournament will also be a warm-up for Palembang, which will co-host the November event along with Jakarta.

“The renovation work on the 4,700-seat sports hall has just finished and this Asian Championship is a good chance for us to get an idea of how ready we are to host the SEA Games,” the head of South Sumatra’s sports office, Muddai Madang, told state news agency Antara.

Muddai said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — reportedly a volleyball fan — is scheduled to inspect SEA Games venues in Palembang on Thursday and Friday and would likely attend a volleyball game.