Nagano, Japan, October 1, 2019 - Brazil eased to a 3-0 (25-14, 25-22, 25-14) win over Canada on the opening day of the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Cup on Tuesday, although they didn’t have everything their own way against a spirited opponent at Nagano's White Ring arena.
Brazil coach Renan Dal Zotto: “Before the World Cup we were already aware that these matches were going to be very hard for us, especially as our first opponent was Canada. We respect this team very much and know how good they are, with good balance and very good team players, so we were a little concerned about the match. In the second set the game was very close and we had to come from behind. However we wanted to challenge our limits by giving serve to gain more points, and this strategy worked very well, I think, which enabled us to come back to win the set.”
On the next game against Australia:
“Our previous matches against Australia have been very close. In this kind of very long tournament we will try to make good teamwork by giving good serves, receiving well, and also attacking. By getting these elements into good shape we would like to build up our teamwork step by step in each match.”
Brazil captain Bruno Rezende: “I feel very happy that our first match was successful and we were able to win today. We had a little bit of anxiety before the match as it was the first game, and from the second set on the Canadian team had very good teamwork and were doing well with their serving, blocking, attacking, and spiking. However, we stayed calm and were able to handle all of their good combinations, and in the third set I think we were able to perform as we know we can as the Brazilian team. Now we want to make sure we rest well tonight ahead of tomorrow’s game against Australia, which will be another hard match.”
On the tight second set:
“I think Canada really played well in the defensive system, they blocked really well and caused a lot of trouble for my job. After that I think at the end of the set we started to play a little bit smart, and Leal (Hidalgo Yoandy) made a really great sequence of serves and we put them in trouble. In the end we had important counter attacks and we scored the points, but I think the good point of this is that we didn’t lose our focus or patience. Playing against this type of team that have a really good defensive system you have to have patience to play, and I think even when we were four or five points behind we didn’t lose our focus and that was great.”
Canada coach Daniel Lewis: “Congratulations to the Brazilian team. It took 10 years as a player to beat them once, so I hope it doesn’t take 10 years again as a coach. For Canada, it’s always a pleasure to play in this tournament and against the calibre of teams such as Brazil. I think we did a good job, we had a pretty good game plan in effect and it was working, and the second set is probably where we lost a little bit of our… we didn’t lose it, but we had a good opportunity. But Brazil is Brazil, and you cannot give them a window of opportunity to come back in a set. After that, I think it was a bit of an emotional letdown so we had to be careful in the third set - you see this sometimes in the third set, this type of blowout can happen. But it wasn’t that we stopped fighting, it’s just that Brazil have a lot of skill and they put us in a lot of trouble there on serve and so on. We’ll take a look at the video, get ready for Russia, and good luck to everybody in the tournament.”
On the next game against Russia:
“Obviously they’re massive and they always will be. But in recent years smaller teams and players have really found ways to adapt to this, and you’re seeing that more and more, especially in the last five years. We will follow these tactics. You have to be able to serve difficult against Russia, and you have to be able to receive their big serves. The trick will be to locate the setting well so that we have very good opportunities to attack with deception.”
Canada captain Nicholas Hoag: “Congratulations to Brazil, they played a great game. We have a very young team here, but I don’t think that was a problem tonight. I think we lacked a lot of receiving tonight. They served really well and made very few mistakes, and I think we should have fought harder in receive and then our play could have been better. Our block defence was really good tonight - we touched a lot of balls and there were a lot of blocks, so we want to improve on that for Russia tomorrow and we’ll see how the rest of the tournament goes.”
On what went well in the second set:
“I think in the second set most of our play was consistent and clean, we didn’t take too many points in receive until the end when they went on a really good serving run. But other than that we were very aggressive, we were scoring points, our setter was playing very well, and we were not making many mistakes, which helped a lot.”