Nagano, Japan, October 4, 2019 - Brazil battled to a 3-1 (25-19, 21-25, 25-19, 25-22) win over a resilient Egypt at the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Cup on Friday, with Yoandy Leal Hidalgo racking up 22 points in a powerful display.
Brazil coach Renan Dal Zotto: “First of all I am very happy about tonight’s victory because we knew Egypt had played very well over the first two days. Because of that, we expected this would be a very difficult match for us too.
“In today’s match every set was very close, and in the second set especially the serve from Egypt was very aggressive and our reception didn’t work so well. In the fourth set either team could have won. But I think the fact that we have more experience in our team is what enabled us to win the game.”
Brazil captain Bruno Rezende: “First of all we knew that tonight’s game against Egypt would be a really difficult fight because they played really well in the first two matches, and we were prepared for a long match. They had a lot of energy in all the sets, so I think they played really well. Our system, our serve and block and defence, didn’t work as well in certain moments as it has in other matches. Their setter played really fast and caused a lot of trouble for our team, but we have to manage these ups and downs in these long competitions and try to improve. It’s normal to play not so well tonight, but I think we have to (praise) the Egyptian team because they played well, they put us in trouble for all the match. But we are happy, because we got three points and now (we have to) just keep pushing because it’s a long tournament.”
Egypt coach Gido Vermeulen: “First of all I want to congratulate my dear friend Renan for the victory in this game. We’ve known each other for a long time, and I’d love to play Brazil all the time. They were great today, in the first set Brazil played amazing volleyball in defence. I think we also played great, but the difference was clear that they are the Olympic champions. Then in the second set we could play with a lot of energy and emotion and could get one set, and I think my players were a little bit too happy with that. If they had belief that we could win this game maybe we could have done more, but in the third set Brazil showed that they are the best."
On what he thinks enabled them to win the second set:
“I think we served very well, we could (make sure) that Bruno (Rezende) did not have the ball in his hands to play in the middle to create, and then with block defence we could stop them a little bit. I think that was the main goal also for this match – to serve very well so they cannot play in the middle, because they have incredibly good middles. And next I think we brought some energy to the court, and when we start believing we can play really good volleyball. I think Brazil also don’t know us very well, so that was an advantage for us that we could just play freely and show what we can do, and we did.”
Egypt captain Ahmed Abdelhay: “First of all I’d like to thank God for the performance. In my opinion we were playing the best team in the world. A very big, very famous, very top-level team. We played a very good game and did our best, but the problem we had was that some players still don’t have enough experience to play in these big matches. They are still a little bit younger than the experienced players. But overall they tried to do their best, and we were competing against the best team in the world.”