Team Captains and Head Coaches of the Teams of Canada, Belgium, USA and Serbia
Novi Sad, Serbia, June 2, 2017 - The Hotel Park in Novi Sad hosted a press conference with the head coaches and captains of FIVB Volleyball World League Pool B1 teams Belgium, Canada, the USA, and Serbia.
Serbia captain Nemanja Petrić said: "Last week we played a qualification tournament in Zagreb and we qualified for the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship. It meant a lot to us. We used it also as a part of the preparations for the World League and it was a nice introduction. Of course, our goal is always the same, to be the best. We are reigning World League champions and we possess enough quality to reach the finals once again. We will face three strong teams, top class teams, and it will be much harder than it was in Zagreb, for sure. We respect our rivals, but we are focused on winning."
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USA captain Kawika Shoji said: "Many thanks to the FIVB and the Volleyball Federation of Serbia for hosting this tournament. We are excited to be here. The Serbian team is excellent, and we are facing them on day one. We have a lot of new players and we will have to build our game from scratch. We are having a tough group here, and it will be interesting to see how we manage to stand up to them. We didn’t have any friendly matches before the start of the competition so we have to wait and see where we are at in this moment."
Belgium captain Sam Deroo: "The World League is a top quality competition and these are our first matches at this level. But we are not here only to participate, we are here to win some matches. We organise the last tournament in our country and we expect to have a couple of wins in our pocket before we enter the court in front of our fans. We have ambition in this competition and we are planning to grow as a team during these tournaments."
Canada captain John Gordon Perrin said: "We have a very young team with several new players in the roster, and of course, the new head coach. We are training well, and we are happy to be here. Our first rival is Belgium, we know them. Serbia is one of the best teams in the world, the USA volleyball have tradition. We plan to improve with each match we play, we want to gain more experience and build the team for the future."
Canada head coach Stephane Antiga said: "We find ourselves for the first time in the A division of the World League, so this will be a good test for our abilities. We will have three strong matches, but I think we are ready. Everybody is OK in the team and we are eager to start competing."
Belgium coach Vital Heynen said: "I cannot say a lot in this moment as my luggage is still somewhere out there, traveling to finally reach me. I miss all my papers with the info about our rivals. All I can say is that this will be an encounter of two continents, Europe v North America. I saw some videos of the USA team, they have young but very interesting and promising guys. This will be definitely a very interesting tournament. Of course, in my opinion, Serbia is the favourite."
USA coach John Speraw said: "We want to reach the Final Tournament but we will have to go easy, step-by-step, in this competition. We are still learning about the team as we have a lot of new players in the roster. Of course, our advantage is going to be the fact that the other teams do not know much about our players and they will have a hard time preparing the matches. We are training well, the guys are good, so let’s hope for the best - said John Speraw, head coach of USA team.
Nikola Grbić, head coach of Serbia: "We haven’t spent a lot of time together and still we were preparing for two major competitions. The World Championship qualifications and the World League. In a single month we have 14 matches, and that’s too much. For this tournament our shape is not too important, the only important thing is to be better than our rivals. We are ready, we are determined to play well, and I think we can win all three matches.