Ufa, Russia, June 8, 2019 - Russia defeated USA in three sets on day two of the 2019 men's FIVB Volleyball Nations League pool in Ufa.
USA head coach John Speraw: "Well, we are obviously disappointed with how we lost the first set. We were close. We need to search for a better connection between our setter and our outside hitters. We always appreciate the good crowd. We lost today but in general we love to travel all over the world and improve our performance."
USA player Maxwell Holt: "Russia played a really good game. Their setter played a really good match. I think it was a good lesson for the team, we have a lot of young players. I think we have to learn and a lot and modify for tomorrow. It’s a long season and it’s a long road to the finals but fortunately we are already qualified for the finals. We just hope to keep getting better for these matches, finding ways to win and to learn."
Russia head coach Tuomas Sammelvuo: "Today we played as a team and we moved forward together. In the first set we were searching for confidence and we found it, the USA were strong but we found a solution. Our players played good and our system worked well. We followed our philosophy and played our game, maybe USA was searching for theirs. We played well. We performed a very good block and we succeeded."
Russia capitan Igor Kobzar: It’s good that we won. But the Americans played their second team - that’s why we had a quite easy win.
This is the tournament when you can improve step by step. Poletaev played well today, thanks to him."