Toyama, Japan, September 16, 2015 – Argentina beat Egypt 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-21) in the FIVB World Cup at Toyama City Gymnasium on Wednesday.
Argentina captain Luciano De Cecco: We played well today, especially in defence and service and we were able to put pressure on Egypt. We had good tension but could play relaxed and I hope we can do the same in the next match.
Argentina coach Julio Velasco: I agree with our captain. Our service was very important because Egypt couldn’t play fast with their middle blockers. And our block play was very good after five or six points. We could find the timing to block – position 4 especially – and our defence also did good work, but the best thing I think we had was that we made very few mistakes today.
(Re. making no substitutions in the match): Normally, I make substitutions but today the team was playing well and I didn’t want to use the double change we use a lot because (setter) De Cecco had a good rhythm in the game and I didn’t want to cut that rhythm, and also our opposite Poglajen had a good service, so I didn’t want to change him in service. I asked my players to be ready if the match changed but we controlled the game and that’s why I didn’t make any change.
Egypt coach Nehad Shehata: Congratulations to Argentina. They played very good today with very high quality skills and they concentrated well. We played very badly today. Our players had no will today; only the captain was scoring and the other players didn’t help him to get a result. In general, this is the worst match we have played in this competition.
Egypt captain Ahmed Abdelhay: Our team played very badly today. We didn’t play to lose, but we let Argentina have an easy win. They served well today, defended well and concentrated on blocking our position 4. In general, they concentrated better than our players, so they had an easy match. I hope we can play better next time.