Matosinhos, Portugal, May 16, 2015 – Netherlands Coach Gildo Vermeulen said that his new recruits helped his side to their opening day 3-1 win over Portugal in the World League.
"I'm very happy to win and I'm pleased to see that the new players adapted to the team's gameplan," he said. "Tomorrow we will try to improve on some aspects of the game and try to win it again."
Netherland's Nimir Abdel-Aziz added: "We haven't been this good in our preparation matches, so I'm very happy to win the first match of the competition. But we will have to be aware tomorrow, as Portugal will want to come back from this."
Hugo Silva, Portugal's coach. said: "We know that we have failed on our service, I think that it was the main reason for our defeat. Our opponent was very strong on their serve and we couldn't handle it very well. Congratulations to the Netherlands."
Portugal's Fabrício Silva added: "It was a tough debut. We knew that they had a very strong team but we fought as hard as we could. We began training for this competition very late in the season, our team is still finding their form. Tomorrow is another day and we will have to make less mistakes."