Seoul, Korea, June 2, 2017 - Despite their 3-1 (25-22, 25-15, 22-25, 25-23) victory against Finland, Slovenia captain Tine Urnaut and coach Slobodan Kovan emphasised the difficulty of their first match in the 2017 FIVB Volleyball World League.
Slovenia captain Tine Urnaut: "I'm happy that we won. We put ourselves in a difficult position. The opponent was putting us under a lot of pressure. They did not make many mistakes in the serve so we had difficulties receiving. The game changed in the third set. The opponent played better. We had difficulty siding out and in defence. It was a great match from the third set on. We were focused towards the end."
Slovenia coach Slobodan Kovac said: "First, Finland fought really good. After the second set, we did not play well. We are here after a long flight but so are Finland. We didn't come to the court to play our best. We made so many mistakes. We gave the other team a chance and did not grasp that chance. For tomorrow's game against Korea, we will try to use our team's physical strength and try to serve better. Korea play better every time. We must fight for every ball and we will play good volleyball."
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Finland captain Eemi Tervaportti said: "I think we had a slow start from the beginning. The game level increased during the team. We had our moments but we didn't use them. We look forward to the next game."
Finland coach Tuomas Sammelvuo said: "Congratulations to Slovenia. They are a great team and one of the best teams at the moment. It is a good opportunity for us to play against this kind of tall and physical team.The block is sometimes higher than we are used to playing. What I'm really happy about is that our team came back after 2:0. We always play hard and this is the identity of our team. One difference is the quality of the touches and communication between the players. We want to give little bit more quality to the touches.Those things we have to develop. I think we gained a lot of confidence that we can play in this league so I think it's a good thing."