Tokyo, Japan, September 21, 2015 – Canada defeated Venezuela 3-0 (25-18, 25-22, 25-23) in the FIVB Men’s World Cup at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Monday.
Canada coach Glenn Hoag: We’re happy with the win today. Some things worked well. Also, Gavin Schmitt played a fairly good match today; it’s the best he’s been physically for a long time, so this was a positive. I think some of our less experienced players are getting better – Vandoorn and Nick Hoag are learning from these experiences, so we’re pretty happy. For many years now we’ve known that Venezuela have been increasing their level of play as well as many other teams.
Canada captain Frederic Winters: It feels good for us to finally win a match. It’s been a while. We’ve lost a bunch of matches in a row to some really strong teams. I think the important part of the match was the first set when we served so well and got us some easy points, which gave us some confidence that we’ve been lacking a little bit in the last couple of games. Now we have two competitive matches that we can win and leave Japan on a high note, so I’m hoping for the best in the next two days.
Venezuela coach Vincenzo Nacci: In the first set especially we made three major mistakes. We had about three chances to counterattack that we didn’t convert, so that was our mistake. In the second and third sets, we played better but what we lacked as a team was a strong determination to win. Now we have matches against Australia and Egypt and we hope to play with a more determination and win these matches.
Venezuela captain Kervin Pinerua: Congratulations to Canada for their win. It’s a shame how the match turned out. We should have done better. Canada served very well today so it was very tough on reception. All the players played well so I hope we can get a better outcome in our upcoming matches.