Argentina's coach Julio Velasco at the press conference
Varna, Bulgaria, July 10, 2015 – The second Group 2 semifinal was a learning experience for Argentina, which lost to France in straight sets. The winning side, however, had to give its best on the court to beat the South American team. Here are the post-match statements...
Javier Filardi, captain of Argentina: ”Congratulations to France for the team spirit and the victory! Argentina needs to continue working to develop better play, so next time we do not miss a chance when playing in finals.”
Benjamin Toniutti, captain of France: ”We know we needed to mobilize in order to survive against Argentina. We knew we needed to serve well to achieve a good result. After that our block started working well and we won. The hardest thing now is to forget this match and concentrate for tomorrow.”
Javier Velasco, coach of Argentina: ”Today there was a big difference between the two teams. France gave us a lesson how to play volleyball. They did everything on court, we did nothing. Their serve was good, but this is only one of the elements. The fast attack worked well, the defence-block system too. Argentina has to develop further to go for the level of France. The most important is the change of mentality. We made a few steps and we have a lot more to go.”
Laurent Tillie, coach of France: ”We are not good at blocking, so we tried to touch every ball to give our defence the opportunity to process it. We have a fantastic Antonin Rouzier - serving and attacking well, Benjamin Toniutti setting great, our passing was good... Tomorrow will be a completely different match we now have to prepare for.”
Jenia Grebennikov, libero of France: ”We served and blocked really well, everything was positive for us tonight. Tomorrow we will need to be focused on reception, because Bulgaria serve very well. Nikolay Nikolov served really well today and I hope he does not serve like that tomorrow.”