It's all joy for Canada as they overcome Russia for the second time in their World League Finals history
Curitiba, Brazil, July 5, 2017 - The remarkable result achieved by Canada over Russia not only fulfilled the Americans’ first goal at this 2017 FIVB Volleyball World League Finals, but also enabled them to dream about stepping onto the podium for the very first time of their history.
John Gordon Perrin, Canada captain: “Our goal at this Final Round was to reach the semifinals and we did it, of course we’re very happy because of that. And now, we will fight for a medal, just like everyone else would to at this situation. It was very nice to have a lively crowd as the Brazilian one on our side today and my thanks to all of them for that.”
Stéphane Antiga, Canada coach: “We’re very satisfied for this qualification and also because even though it wasn’t our best game, we made less mistakes than yesterday and played good volleyball overall. We had to prevail on two very hard first sets and we could take advantage of that position from that point. We are aware also that this result leaves us on a very comfortable place for what’s ahead, so we’re very happy.”
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Sergey Shliapnikov, Russia coach: “We have played the first two sets on a leveled basis against Canada, and we could have won any one of them or maybe both. Unfortunately we didn’t and in the third set we lost our focus and couldn’t be up to the level anyone would expect from Russia.”
Dmitry Kovalev, Russia captain: “Certainly, the entire team fell into many errors today. That’s a point we need to work on if we want to succeed on upcoming matches.”