Aix en Provence, France, June 9, 2018 – France played the first two sets flawlessly, giving them a big edge to take the four-setter against Argentina at the FIVB Volleyball Nations League on Saturday.
France coach Laurent Tillie: “The first two sets were perfect. Everybody did their job. It was magnificent to watch, it was like a symphony for two sets. After this, I wanted to do some turn over, but these situations are always difficult for the players since we’re all more or less spectators of such show. What I liked is that we came up with the win even if Argentina put their starting line-up back on court. We managed to earn three points. We have set up a fair competition among players who are all setting a higher level. The work we do together on details makes the difference. It’s always about a quarter of an inch, half of a second. We also worked on conditioning this week and this is what we wanted in order to fully prepare for the finals.”
France player Earvin Ngapeth: “It was a good test and we came up strong. We’ll have to be even better tomorrow against Serbia because they’re the big team of this pool. The result of this upcoming match will help us assess our level among the best. Today was great because the crowd showed up and put a good, lively atmosphere, which brought about a lot of smiles and insanity in our game. Whenever the room is full, we want to make them happy.”
France player Jenia Grebennikov: “We did two excellent first sets, but they changed their line-up a bit and took one set. I’m very satisfied with the first two sets and of the match overall, with three more points in the ranking. All our practices help us make our connections and details better and better, and it showed tonight. That’s why I’m quite happy about recovering our trademark defence and passing skills. What I would have gladly done without is the headshot on that serve in the third set.”
Argentina coach Julio Velasco: “We’re kind of frustrated because we arrived at 14-14 in the first set, we missed some counter-attacks and then Ngapeth went serving. He served very well but we suffered too much, same thing in the last set with the setter’s serve where we could have passed better. Moreover, our attack was not good especially when we couldn’t play with our middle blockers. France’s defence made the difference. They covered so much ground, which was impressive. Finally, we’re still behind in terms of mentality. My team is still young and our hopes are to win some matches and build up this team, but to qualify for The Finals will be very tough.”