Ufa, Russia, June 10, 2018 – Russia showed great team spirit in their four-set victory over Iran at the FIVB Volleyball Nations League on Sunday.
Russia coach Sergei Shliapnikov: “We had a good start, but messed up a little bit in the end. With our players' functional conditions in mind, our goals for the stage are fulfilled, and that's important. We'll keep going. Right now we need to let our players recover. Some of the members will be rotated. We have to substitute players out throughout our matches. Sometimes they don't work as well as we'd hope, but there's no other choice for us because the players are under extreme loads. Each player is important for us. We try to prepare them and give them game experience.
“Dima Muserskiy being on the court boosts the others’ confidence and that’s very valuable. He has an advantage at the middle of the net and he dominated that area today as well. The others feel more at ease when Dima is in the middle and everything is working out for him. We’re very grateful for Ufa and to our fans for their warm support because it is very important for us in this situation.”
Russia player Aleksei Kabeshov: “The team spirit helped us a lot today. We played well. We lost the first match of the stage, but we got it together, believed in ourselves, thus we achieved these results. We prepare for every match, every opponent as if they are special. Next we're going to go to Germany and do our duty there.”
Iran coach Igor Kolakovic: “We'd like to congratulate the team of Russia on their victory. It was a wonderful game. We think that the sets were more or less even. We had a chance in the second set and in the last one we were pretty close as well. Muserskiy played very well, he plays in an unusual style that defies expectations. Once again, I'd like to congratulate both teams, and I think our team played great.”
Iran player Amir Ghafour: “Today was a really great match. I’m sure that fans enjoyed it. We could've won the match, but in some important moments we made mistakes. We also couldn’t serve better than Muserskiy. He is really tall, especially when jumping. It was good experience for us. We must keep trying to play better and improve ourselves.”