Varna, Bulgaria, September 21, 2018 - Argentina delivered one of the biggest surprises at the 2018 FIVB World Championship! South Americans defeated the unstoppable until this match Polish machine by 3-2 (16-25, 25-19, 25-23, 23-25, 16-14) in the Palace of Culture and Sports!
Julio Velasco, head coach of Argentina: „I am so happy because we won a very difficult match. I saw some controversial situations but we continued to play inspite of them. I am very, very proud of my team! It is practically impossible to qualify for the next round but we are here to give our best and play for the honor of our country. We were in the similar situation 4 years ago when we beat USA even we did not have a chance to qualify and now we did the same against Poland. This is the sport!”
Luciano De Cecco, captain of Argentina: “We wanted to win, we fought every set and we did it. I think we played an amazing game. We went on the field today for fun, to relax, to play our volleyball. We made some really good points. May be in the fourth set Poland made three really good serves and changed the result but in the tie-break we did a really good job. We enjoyed this game. We will come tomorrow to fight against Serbia and to try to make the best volleyball again.”
Vital Heynen, head coach of Poland: „It was a tough game. Both the teams were very close to the win. We can say that Argentina was a little bit more lucky but I tnink they won the tie-break because they were better. We had our chances but we were not using them at the end. Now we have a couple of hours to prepare for our next game tomorrow. This is the situation when you have 4 good teams in a pool. Sometimes you lose! It is part of life!”
Dawid Konarski, player of Poland: „We had our chances to stay undefeated and to get at least 2 points out of the game which were very important. We started well and easily won the first set. But then something happened and we began to make a lot of mistakes. We are dissapointed for sure but we have everything in our hands in the upcoming matches. I hope we will win them.”