Tuesday action in Curitiba will provide a lot of emotions from the very beginning as hosts and current Olympic champions Brazil are set to face a resilient side of Canada in the opening game, scheduled at 3.05 PM (local time). Second game of Day 1 will feature pool play leaders France against a renewed USA squad at 5.40 PM (local) - both being World League winners on recent years, 2015 and 2014 respectively. Defending champions Serbia and fellow European powerhouse Russia get a rest on the first day and will begin their campaigns on Wednesday.
Monday agenda included not only several training sessions for the teams but also the official press conference prior to the competition, where the coaches showed their hopes of achieving success at a spectacular event:
Stéphane Antiga, Canada coach: “We are very excited about being here, as it’s a highly special place with a great volleyball atmosphere. I’m satisfied with the way we performed on the first round, but things for sure will be different now. I hope this Final Round to be amazing - during the competition we responded very well to play against a lot of fans and I expect the same for next matches.”
Sergey Shliapnikov, Russia coach: “We are happy to be here in Brazil - the country of volleyball. We had some injuries during the Preliminary Round, so I consider we couldn’t show our maximum strength towards this Final Round. We are still to show our best form to the audience, but we have worked a lot and now we will try to display all that on court.”
Renan Dal Zotto, Brazil coach: “On behalf of Brazilian volleyball I’d like to welcome these five wonderful teams to our home. I know this Final Round in a football stadium will be a unique experience. I’m sure it will be a major event and we arrive to it in a good moment. We had a good first stage, we grew along the competition and I’m looking forward to this final track. However, I’m aware we have a considerable responsibility as the host team and also that any of these six sides can win the championship.”
Nikola Grbic, Serbia coach: “It’s always much easier to win something for the first time than to confirm it the next year. Besides that, we had our continental qualification for World Championship only a week before the start of the World League and as many of the teams here we faced 14 matches in 28 days, which is very exhausting. That being said, we’re here now and that’s all that matters. We will try to play at our best to succeed.”
Laurent Tillie, France coach: “We’re pleased to be in Brazil because we also had a very demanding calendar and we also struggled with too many injuries, but we made it here anyway. Now, another competition begins - we will have the six best teams of the World League in a big, big stadium, with a lot of fans, so we must keep our level and hopefully that will get us onto the podium.”
John Speraw, USA coach: “We are building a new team and they have developed very well. I’m pleased with our growth during the course of pool play - after the first week, it wasn’t looking very optimistic for us to be here, so for us it’s very exciting to have achieved this comeback and be in the Finals. We want to continue the improvement of these past weeks and we look forward to learn even more as we play against these great teams.”