Toyama, Japan, September 18, 2015 – Argentina overcame Canada 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 29-27, 25-22) in the FIVB World Cup at Toyama City Gymnasium on Friday.
Argentina coach Julio Velasco: I think today was a very difficult match. I don’t think we played worse but I think Canada pushed us to play worse because they had a very good service in some moments of the match, especially their floating service, and we had problems. When we served better, I think we changed the match. But what I liked about my team is that when we lost the set after we were winning 5-0, we continued to play and that is important because mental power is so important in this competition, and in volleyball in general. But Canada is always a very difficult match and it was like that this time.
Argentina captain Luciano De Cecco: I’m very happy about the win despite, like yesterday, not being in our best condition. Like yesterday, we didn’t give up and fought hard, and that was good. And we fought as a team and I’m very happy to be a part of this team. For the next round, we’d like to take each match at a time and we really need to think and have a strategy for each match. Now, we’re playing good volleyball as a team and I think we might find it difficult against the higher-ranked teams, but our purpose here is to show that we are one of these higher-ranked teams.
Canada coach Glenn Hoag: I would like to congratulate Argentina for their victory. We’ve played Argentina many times this summer and they’re a good, well-rounded team playing very good volleyball in this World Cup. We again tried to fight because we haven’t had a very good tournament quality-wise. We’ll try to find a solution and play better. We have another tournament after this so we’ll keep working on these things and try to improve.
Canada captain Frederic Winters: We played Argentina like six times this summer. We won the first one and haven’t beaten them since. Today, we fought harder than in the two previous games, but we’re still not quite there. I think we’re playing with an opposite (Gavin Schmitt) that’s very tired and injured. He tries his best against a good team that’s in 100 per cent health and we didn’t get enough from our other players today to at least take it to a fifth set. But I thought Jansen Vandoorn played excellent in the last three or four matches. He’s done really, really well and he’s shown potential for the future and that’s a plus from our time in Toyama. I think Argentina are really skilled volleyball players in every position. They play outstanding defence with great setting and they rally around each other and they are a fiery group, which is the same model we have. But technically they are a little more sound than us and that’s why we have so much trouble beating them.