Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 18, 2015 – France advanced to the FIVB Volleyball World League final with victory over Poland on Saturday to set up a final against Serbia on Sunday.
It means there will be a new World League champion as France, who qualified by winning Group 2 a week ago, and Serbia’s previous best is silver.
Laurent Tillie, coach, France: “I’m not thinking about tomorrow. I want to congratulate my players because we won this game with our mental strength; we have a fighting spirit. We played well, especially the two first sets, then we found some trouble in reception. Poland played very well with a block defence and the tie-break was more like the flip of a coin, but the spirit to win was there.”
Antonin Rouzier, player, France: “This will be the first World League final in my career. This Saturday we played with a great team spirit, it was unbelievable. We have won almost every match we played this season, so to win the title will be very important to our team.”
Stephane Antiga, coach, Poland: “We missed some chances for counter-attack. We did not play so well today, we were not so precise, we were not spiking with clear mind. I'm sad, the guys are sad, but we have third place to fight for tomorrow.”
Michal Kubiak, captain, Poland: “In the first two sets they played very good volleyball. We made a lot of mistakes, but we came back into the game and I think we should not have lost that kind of game, because we switched off the opposite hitter (Antonin) Rouzier and he was not scoring in the last three sets.
“It is hard to say something, but we still have something to fight for. Tomorrow is the third place game and we want to win it.”