Nagano, Japan, October 4, 2019 – Australia claimed a historic victory at the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Cup on Friday, picking up a first ever win over Russia 3-2 (25-16, 22-25, 26-28, 25-21, 15-12) off the back of 19 points from Curtis Stockton at Nagano White Ring arena.
Australia coach Mark Lebedew: “We had a very difficult first two days of the tournament, where we were not able to play how we want to play. Of course this is the World Cup, all the teams are good teams, so the result is one thing but the important thing was the performance. Yesterday we had a hard day with some meetings and some practice. We practiced very well and today we responded in the perfect way. It still takes us maybe three and a half sets before we understand that it’s possible to win, because as you know this is the first time in history that Australia has won against a Russian team – even in friendly matches. So it’s difficult to believe that we can win, and it wasn’t until maybe the middle of the fourth set that we started to understand that we are playing one game today against one team and we can win this game, the opponent is not important. I’m really happy that we could play well. I’m really happy that we could win this match, and we’re looking forward to the next matches.”
Australia captain Max Staples: “This is the first time I’ve ever beaten Russia, so that’s nice. I think it’s the first time a lot of these guys have beaten Russia, I can’t remember ever doing it before. I was saying two days ago that our team was having problems with focus and spirit and that kind of thing, but then we had a day off, we did a couple of biceps in the gym, and I think that lifted the spirits a bit, and today we were able to play with a few different guys. We have 14 guys who can play, and I guess in the end we were just hungry for it today.”
Russia coach Tuomas Sammelvuo: “First of all I want to congratulate the Australian team, they played with great focus, great spirit, fighting for every ball, also playing the volleyball against which the Russian team suffers. Cover, play fast counter-attack, and while we should be patient and play the game we had big problems in the service and passing in the beginning of the game. This is the second game in a row that we came to the court like this, it’s not possible. After you start to get a little bit nervous, you lose some easy balls – how we start the games, it can’t be like this. Of course there is always the opponent, but for us this is one thing. For our attack we got a little bit better after the first set, but this is a big lesson for us.
“Serve and passing, we lost that important part of the game. Even if some moments we were hoping to get back with our serves. We lost the service and passing game.”
Russia captain Sergey Grankin: “Congratulations to Australia. My first opinion is that we played very badly on serve and after that we had problems on our block. This is a big problem and we weren’t able to fight with Australia because they have very good reception. They always had one against one on the wings, which made problems for us. My second opinion is that our spirit is a big problem. We need to go into the game and fight, and don’t wait to play our way.”
On preparations for the next game against Brazil:
“For us all World Cup matches are important, we can’t afford to lose any. Each match is very important for us, so now we need to process this match and in doing so we can start to prepare for tomorrow’s match, which we want to win.”
Youtube