Hamamatsu, Japan, September 18, 2019 – Brazil beat Kenya 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-14) on the fourth day of the FIVB Women’s World Cup at Hamamatsu Arena on Wednesday.
Brazil coach Jose Roberto Guimaraes: "I was happy to play Kenya as a representative of Africa. They are improving a lot. In this match, they improved their service and attacking from sharp angles and that was good. Tomorrow against USA, we will be playing one of the best countries in the world. They have speed, strong attacks and good side-out, so we must concentrate on our defence."
Brazil captain Fabiana Claudino: "We knew that Kenya had strong attackers so we had to deal with that and we did that successfully, which enabled us to win. We were able to find our rhythm and control the game. Tonight, we will have a good rest and prepare for tomorrow’s game, which will be very important for us so we need to have concentration and all 14 members must be focused on the match."
Kenya coach Paul Bitok: "First, I would like to say that after playing three matches in this competition, we sat down and watched our videos and analysed most of these teams which are playing at a high level and we agreed that we have to play like Brazil or USA. Our observations realised that our game was very slow and for us to catch up we must start copying what these other countries are doing. They are at a high level and it is possible for us to catch up if we can start from today’s match. In practice, we tried to play a very fast game. It is still difficult for us but because of the two matches we had at the beginning, we decided we had improved a lot on reception so let’s try to play a little faster so that we don’t have problems with blocks from our opponents. I’m happy today that we started to adapt.
"We want to win but in this situation as a head coach it is better for me to take time to use this even if we lose. I believe it is possible for us to catch up with high-level countries if we can continue like this. We really enjoyed playing with Brazil and I hope we have learned something from them and tomorrow’s game we will using the same system and I believe that this will help us in the coming matches.
"Our objective remains the same; we came here wanting to win some matches. Argentina is not ranked very high. We will try as much as possible to win, but I would like to maintain the same policy that I started today. I want to play the same style as these other countries who are advanced. It might work for us tomorrow, it might not work but I think it will be good preparation for us to have a good style in the future. So, if we can’t win it will be OK for me if we can maintain the style we played today."
Kenya captain Mercy Moim: "I think today we played better than the previous day. I think now we can stop following other teams and focus on wins. Congratulations to Brazil for today. We practiced on serve reception and changed the attacks with fast balls and that is why the game was different from previous games. We are going to do our best tomorrow because it’s the last day here and we want to leave a legacy here with our first win. Last time, we won one game here and this time we want to win again."