Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 31, 2018 – “We are eager to travel and start the tournament. We have been training very hard and with great enthusiasm. I feel good and very confident,” said Argentine player Bruno Lima on his first opportunity to play at an FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.
Lima and Agustin Loser are among the young Argentine players who have been called up to compete in the biggest tournament in volleyball.
“I’m very happy to play my first World Championship with the senior team,” Loser said. “It’s going to be an incredible experience to be able to represent Argentina. We have prepared ourselves to perform in the best way possible.”
Argentina coach Julio Velasco and the 14 Argentinian players spoke to the media before traveling to Europe for friendlies against the Netherlands from September 6 to 8 and the World Championship from September 9 to 30.
The team will open their World Championship campaign against Belgium on September 12 in Pool A, where they are also grouped with the Dominican Republic, Italy, Slovenia and Japan.
“The first game with Belgium is decisive and we are thinking about getting into that game in the best way possible by studying the opponents, getting in shape and recovering,” Velasco said.
“Argentina is a team that defends a lot and a team that tries to make few mistakes. When we have few errors from the service line, we have good results. When it comes to attack, we need good reception.
“Being a balanced team, we cannot play against European teams with high balls. It would be difficult, so we have to be tactically smart and we need to take advantage of the weak points of our opponents, and not give up on any ball.”
Setter Luciano De Cecco and outside spiker Facundo Conte, both playing in their third World Championship, will lead a group of seasoned and young players.
“I think we are a team that will put everything on the court - technically and mentally,” De Cecco said. “We will try to give everything from the first game to the last, and hopefully we can get good results.”
“After two months of hard training, we are all very happy to start this World Championship,” Conte said. “We want to play our best brand of volleyball like what we did in Rio, where we played an incredible tournament. I hope we can enjoy it more this time.”
Argentina line-up
Setters - Luciano De Cecco and Maximiliano Cavanna
Opposites - Jose Luis Gonzalez and Bruno Lima
Middle Blockers - Martin Ramos, Sebastian Sole, Agustin Loser, Pablo Crer
Outside Spikers - Facundo Conte, Tomas Lopez, Lisandro Zanotti and Cristina Poglajen
Liberos - Ignacio Fernandez and Alexis Gonzalez