Coaches Comments
Here are the coaches comments as we head into the 3rd round of the World Cup. FIVB
The 12 Head Coaches of the Women’s World Cup 2007 HEAD COACHES TOKYO SITE A
Jon Uriarte (Argentina): “Our team is arriving in good health to the last round. Our young squad is growing during the competition and we hope to face three of the most powerful teams in this competition and continue to grow. For us this has been a really important step toward our qualification for the Olympics and we want to complete this competition in the best way”.
Bernardo Rezende (Brazil): “After a tough start we got some good results and we have still got a good chance to qualify for the Olympics. That is our main goal. We have got a good rhythm but the older players are feeling a bit tired because we are not a young team like Argentina or Australia, so we hope we can keep healthy. The team has shown in the last years that when the difficult moments come they play better. Still everything is open. We are tense and I hope we are prepared”.
Martin Stoev (Bulgaria): “We came here with the same wish to win a ticket for the Olympics in Beijing next year, so I hope in the last three matches we will give the best we can to achieve this. I would like to say the competition is very, very strong. (Regarding their identical record with USA at 6-2 and 1.122 points ratio): The main thing we would like to do in this situation is to play and show good volleyball. If we play good it means victories will come. But I am sure both teams, Bulgaria and USA, are ready to go to the Olympics”.
Tatsuya Ueta (Japan): “Among our team there are some young players and there is still room for improvement in terms of mentality to fight through all these matches. We lost three matches or so because of the lack of mentality. We have had some hard matches and I believe the players have learned a lot from these eight matches. For the last three matches we would like to see what we have learned in terms of success and failure”.
Vladimir Alekno (Russia): “We are now facing the final round and we have to fight really tough matches in Tokyo. It is not an easy challenge for us to overcome”.
Hugh McCutcheon (USA): “We are here at the beginning of the fourth round with the possibility of achieving our goal very real for our team. Our play up to now has been improving over the third phase and we hope to continue our hard work. The tournament is difficult but we are very focused and the guys are ready for the competition and eager to get going. (On the USA record being the same as Bulgaria): We always try to concede as few points as possible so it is no different to what we do every day. For us the focus is taking one match at a time and trying to control what we can control. Our focus has to be on us and the things that we can do as opposed to worrying about the bigger picture”.
HEAD COACHES TOKYO SITE B
Russell Borgeaud (Australia): “We’ve had some good wins and tough losses. In the last round the team needs to improve. It’s a young team with a good future and we need to keep our heads at this point and continue to work for some improvement”.
Ahmed Zakaria (Egypt): “We lost eight matches and in the first and second rounds we didn’t play well. In the third round we played two close matches against Japan and Argentina. At first, we hoped to fight and win three matches. We now hope to qualify for the Olympics next year”.
Marcelo R. Mendez (Spain): “Our goal for the World Cup is to win the three remaining matches so we have a chance to qualify for the Olympics. If we can’t do it this year then we want to qualify next year”.
Yoo Jung-Tak (Korea): “Until now we’ve tried to do our best but couldn’t get good results. We have lots of young players and they have experienced a lot of wonderful things in this tournament against strong teams. In the final round I want us to do our best and try to win some of the matches”.
Carlos D. Cardona (Puerto Rico): “In the first round our team could perform quite well and we have maintained our momentum. We would like to continue to do our best so we can finish with the best result possible for us”.
Antonio Giacobbe (Tunisia): “I am very glad the way my team has carried themselves during this tournament. It is a young team. They were especially good in the last round when we faced some very strong teams in United States, Brazil and Bulgaria. It was very hard to keep control at all in these games. But like we say, every winter becomes spring and we are now waiting to see the good season”.
