Ottawa, Canada, June 8, 2018 – Germany had 12 aces to beat USA in their straight-set encounter in the FIVB Volleyball Nations League on Friday.
Germany coach Andrea Giani: “We had a great competition tonight against a big team like USA. I like how we played and how we used our energy on the court. We beat them with our serves. We’ll approach this competition match by match. When we prepare for our next match, our strategy changes every time.”
Germany captain Christian Fromm: “I didn’t expect to finish in three sets like that. I am really proud of my team for playing this way. They stayed focus all the time, keeping the pressure high. USA were really struggling tonight.
“We want to win every match here. We came here for every point. We need to reach the Final Six. We have a long way to go, so we just have to keep pushing.”
USA coach John Speraw: “This was maybe the worst match I’ve seen our team play in the last five years I’ve coached this program, so it’s obviously very disappointing. We just didn’t pass the ball and we didn’t put any pressure on them from our own service line. It was just a complete and total lost on the serve and pass side of the game, which is the most important side of winning. That’s why you saw the scores the way they were.
“The German team certainly serve a great floater, and periodically over the course of the years we’ve had matches where float serves hurt us. To get hurt that badly by all their float serves, we just didn’t take care of the passing that we needed to take care of, so we’re just going to have to get a little better and see if we can play better tomorrow night.”
USA captain David Smith: “Obviously Germany is a team on the rise. They beat Poland last week so we were expecting a fight and that’s what they gave us. They really controlled the game from the serve and reception standpoint and we weren’t able to figure that out tonight. They beat us in the serve and reception and that’s the fundamental starting point of every rally.”