Coaches Comments
Here are the coaches comments going into round three from FIVB
Jon Uriarte (Argentina): We came with a young squad after our second season working together to find a new generation of players to stand in the Argentina shirt. We have started to get some results and can see that the efforts of the players are paying off. We are happy with the evolution of the team in this tournament and we expect it continue in this way and go forward with more improvements.
Ahmed Zakaria (Egypt): In the first and second rounds we played against five of the best teams — Puerto Rico, Bulgaria, Brazil, Spain and USA — and we lost five matches. In the third round we will play against Japan, Argentina and Russia, and I think that Japan and Argentina are much stronger than last year when we played them in the World Championship. We will fight for one or two matches in this third round. This is our goal. We hope to win one or two matches.
Marcelo Mendez (Spain): We have finished half of the competition and we will do our best to display all our strength in the third round. (On Sunday’s rematch of the recent European Championship final against Russia in Moscow, where Spain won 3-2): The World Cup is a different competition to the European Championship. Of course we will have a very tough match against Russia and we will have to watch for their serve and spikes. Since then I have become head coach and some players have changed, so the conditions are not the same.
Tatsuya Ueta (Japan): We did not play so well in the first round but improved in the second round. Yamamoto, our opposite player, was used more in the second round because his shoulder condition is improving. We have been using the young players Ishijima, Koshikawa and Shimizu, but Yamamoto will play more in this third round. Carlos Cardona (Puerto Rico): There are no injuries in my team; they are all in good condition. My staff is working hard, too, but we are quite tired so the problem is how to regain our stamina. In the third round we will face much tougher opposition so we will have to disaplay our strengths as much as possible.
Vladimir Alekno (Russia): We are coming to the halfway stage of the competition and we have had very good results so far, but the latter part of the competition will be very tough so we will have to stay in our best condition. (On playing Spain on Sunday): The European Championship is history; it’s over. We learned a lot from that competition in terms of technical skill and strategy and we know it is going to be another very hard match.PRESS CONFERENCE IN OKAYAMA
Russell Borgeaud (Australia): We are happy with the performance in the first two rounds but losing to Argentina was disappointing. We want to improve with each match and we are now in a round with tough teams. We are taking it one match at a time and one point at a time. If we can perform against the teams in this round I’ll be happy.
Ricardo Tabach (Brazil) (Head coach Bernardo Rezende was absent due to having to meet with family): Our win against Bulgaria was very good and we did really well. After the United States defeat we learned a lot. We want to make sure we treat each game as the championship game. The team has had good balance after the U.S. game and we now have confidence. We want to go into each game like we did with the Bulgaria match. We have to fight in each game from start to finish in order to do our best. We haven’t conserved our energy at any point. To help with this, our players have trained hard every day and this physical energy has sustained our energy throughout each game.
Martin Stoev (Bulgaria): The first two rounds were very difficult and was a struggle between some very strong teams with equal possibilities. For us, the first round was good and the second not so good. But we still have a chance. Brazil is going up in quality and I think the next two rounds will be important for the end of the World Cup and we still have a real chance.
Yoo Jung-Tak (Korea): We had a very hard time since the start. We have a lot of young players but they are gaining more confidence so they are getting better. In this round, we’d like to do our best. After each game the young players have become mentally stronger.
Antonio Giacobbe (Tunisia): We are very happy with our performance so far but not happy with the results in two matches. But we need to forget this. We have a young team with not much experience. This round there are very strong teams and it is important for our young team to play these games to see what level we are at and what we need to improve more.
Hugh McCutcheon (United States): Each match now is very important for us and we hope to have stability in performance and the play the best volleyball we can. We hope to build on the first two phases and see what can happen from here on. We’ve learned that every team is capable of winning on any given day. Thee equality in the international game is very close so you have to be able to come to the court every day and compete. Our team has yet to play the best volleyball. We are trying to play as well as we can, consistently through the rest of the tournament.
