France's Earvin Ngapeth returned to the court from injury
Antwerp, Belgium, June 18, 2017 – French coach Laurent Tillie said that his team was tired but satisfied after defeating Belgium 3-0 (25-21, 25-16, 25-16) on Sunday.
France's Thibault Rossard: “Today we gave Belgium a lot of pressure with our service. We played a solid game and a good side-out. Even with a few new players in the team. For the last game of the weekend we played very well.”
France's Benjamin Toniutti: “We played with a good reception, so for me it was more easy. Belgium didn’t serve so strong. We kept the pressure. At the end it was a great weekend for us. We win this group and lost only one game in this World League competition so far. Now we have one week of recuperation, it is good for the body to have some rest. It will be a hard Final 6, we will try to play our best volleyball again.”
French coach Laurent Tillie: “I am very satisfied about this tournament. The whole team is tired. Still we managed to win this group and qualify for the Final 6. That is why I give time for several players, like today with Earvin Ngapeth. Normally he could only play in service and reception, it was forbidden for him to spike. I am very satisfied, now we have one week rest and one week working again before the Final 6.”
Belgium's Matthias Valkiers: “We were physically out and we couldn’t play with a rotation of players like France. A logic result against one of the best teams in the world. The Final 6 likes far away and that is bad for us. On the other side, we have time for a little bit of recuperation.”
Belgium's Tomas Rousseaux: “We need a lot of energy in our games and that was what we missed this week-end. We showed we could win against the best teams of the world, but we don’t have the basics to do this in every game. A reason to work on that point. We are top-8 in the World League and that is OK, but we wanted top-6. We will more and more play against the top teams of the world to learn a lot.”
Belgium coach Vital Heynen: “France didn’t play with their best team, but they won. We were empty after a heavy weekend and then we can not take the concurrence with France. We lost three times in the opening game of the World League with a tiebreaker. If we had won one of them, we were in the Final 6. I’m disappointed, but not over this game.”
