Toyama, Japan, September 22, 2019 – Korea beat Argentina 3-1 (25-19, 21-25, 25-19, 25-9) in the first match on the sixth day of the FIVB Women’s World Cup at Toyama City Gymnasium on Sunday.
Korea coach Stefano Lavarini: "I’m happy with our performance because we tried to show a little more than just playing to our outside hitter. Sometimes that may be our best quality, but it also becomes a limitation because then we don’t put more attackers in our play. Today was good because we tried to play with all our attackers and this is what we want to do.
"We generally had a good match, but in the first two sets, Argentina were strong in attack. Although we usually have a really good service, in the first two sets it was not really effective, probably because Argentina did a good job in passing. When the opponent has a chance to make a good pass, for our block and defence it’s much harder. After the first half of the match, we started to have a little more success – in service and digs – and we could play better and make some adjustments.
"In this competition, we care more about improvements than results. It’s still important to get into the habit of being competitive and to try and win because it makes you more comfortable and helps you to believe more in the choices that you are making with the kind of volleyball you want to play. Usually everyone is more happy about winning than losing, so we will try to win as many as possible. Our target is to show we are competitive with most of the best teams in the world."
Korea captain Kim Yeon Koung: "Today, we had an early start at 11 o’clock and that is hard. We have two more 11 o’clock starts so that’s going to be tough. But we got our third win of the World Cup, so we’re happy about that. There were good bits and bad bits in the game but in the end we won, so that’s good. Today, the head coach didn’t want to concentrate all the attacks on me but give a chance to other players to attack."
Argentina coach Hernan Ferraro: "Congratulations to Korea for a good game. Physically we had a height disadvantage so for us it was a good opportunity to learn from a team like Korea. Overall today, we weren’t able to play our game and towards the end, our errors cost us the loss. We got our rhythm back a bit in the second set but we couldn’t get a result. I think my team are going from a lower point to a higher point and improving, but they were tired today and didn’t perform well, especially in counterattacks.
Argentina captain Julieta Constanza Lazcano: "We had good parts and bad parts during the game, and in the last set we made too many errors. Korea played well and put pressure on us with their serves, so maybe that was the main difference."
Youtube