Nagano, Japan, October 5, 2019 - Brazil made it four wins from four at the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Cup on Saturday, Alan Souza top-scoring with 18 points as the Olympic champions disposed of Russia 3-0 (25-16, 25-22, 25-22) at Nagano White Ring arena.
Brazil coach Renan Dal Zotto: “I think this win is very important. Brazil against Russia is a very big game and so we were very alert today. I think our teamwork went very well. Our serving, blocking, attacking – everything worked very well and we were able to put Russia under a lot of pressure. This was a great win and now we need to work on the players’ recovery ahead of tomorrow’s match against Iran.
“This is a long tournament, and every match has its own story. Tomorrow will be another story, so looking ahead to that we will study the video and game data in order to do as well as we can and win. The most important thing for us is to ensure that we are in good condition for every match.”
Brazil captain Bruno Rezende: “First of all, playing against Russia is always so difficult. They have young players, experienced players, and they are always a really great team, a really strong team. We knew they have a really aggressive serve and play in the side out with a lot of speed, so this was difficult for us. We had to push in our serve. I think we served really well with not too many errors, so I think that was one of the keys.”
Russia coach Tuomas Sammelvuo: “After the first set it was a game of moments. We had chances in the next two sets and we didn’t use them. Brazil is a team that serves very well. In both sets we had chances to make side out at the end, but we didn’t. Then, of course, it’s right that it happens like this.”
On the next game against Egypt:
“We will compete, for sure. For every ball, like always. Every ball is the most important ball. The tournament is long but you can’t think about next week or something. Now we have to rest, recover, and tomorrow we have for the first time the early game at 11, so a little bit different preparation, try to go to sleep earlier, and get all the energy for tomorrow.
“I think from this game we take the good things. Yesterday was a tough loss for us. We improved some skills well and served pretty well, and now we have to think in a good way about things, not just the score. ‘Pretty good’ is not enough. You have to be better than the opponent to win.”
Russia captain Sergey Grankin: “Overall I don’t think we played badly. However, Brazil were better and they didn’t allow us to play to win. I think at the end in particular we struggled a little to persevere, but we have a lot of young players. We played some good balls but couldn’t keep them coming. Brazil played very well though, and all we can do now is keep working hard in the next matches.”