Nanjing, China, June 26, 2018 - The coaches and captains of Brazil, the Netherlands, Serbia, Turkey, the United States, and hosts China looked ahead to a tough week of competition as they participated in a press conference ahead of the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Nations League Women’s Finals.
Brazil coach Jose Roberto Guimaraes, who helped his team win several FIVB World Grand Prix titles, sees their VNL Finals appearance as a milestone. He said: “This is an important time for us. I am very proud of my team, this year we are playing with the best teams in the world, and we will try to do our best.”
USA coach Karch Kiraly said: “With all these six teams that performed the best so far, it should be a great competition.”
Serbia coach Zoran Terzic said: “It will be a very interesting and a very difficult tournament.
I hope we are ready for this tournament that we can make progress game by game.”
The Netherlands coach Jamie Morrison delighted in the fact of making it to the top six after five rounds of grueling competition and travel. He said: “It has been a long road to get to this point. We are very happy to be among the top six teams in the world.”
Turkey coach Giovanni Guidetti voiced similar sentiments. He said: “We are absolutely happy and proud of our journey to deserve the privilege to be here in the Finals. We will play the Finals like we have done all throughout the VNL, just thinking about point after point, with the drive to become better.”
China coach Lang Ping expressed her wish for a good VNL Finals not only for her team, but for the fans. She said: “We hope we can play better volleyball where our team can make progress. The best six teams of the world are here this year and we want to give the audience high-level matches that they deserve.”
China captain Zhu Ting said: “We have had matches against the other teams before, and we have made the needed preparation for the coming days.”
Brazil captain Roberta Silva Ratzke underlined the importance of the team’s focus to succeed. She said: “We have worked a lot for this. We hope to play great games, and we will need to play with much concentration.“
The Netherlands captain Maret Balkestein-Grothues said: “We are looking forward to play against these good teams, at high-level matches. We prepared as best as we can to be able to do this.”
Serbia captain Milena Rasic acknowledged the strength of every team in Nanjing. She said: “Every single team has a huge chance to win. I just want to wish everyone the best of luck.”
USA captain Jordan Larson said: “Congratulations to all the teams in making it to the Finals.”
Turkey captain Eda Erdem Dundar said: “It was one of our goals to be here, and here we are. We are so proud of this We want to play and improve ourselves match by match. We will see how it is going to be.”