Varna, Bulgaria, September 23, 2018 – France achieved fifth win and still has a chance to qualify for the Finals at the 2018 FIVB Men’s World Championship! “Les Bleus” overpowered Argentina 3-1 (25-16, 25-20, 26-28, 25-19) and rose to the second place in Pool H with 18 points, before the last match in the Palace of Culture and Sports between Poland and Serbia.
Laurent Tillie, head coach of France: “We are happy but not so much. We had too much pressure the last matches, the last days. We just tried to survive. It was difficult to stay in the game against Argentina today because we really wanted to win but at the same time it was difficult to find the rhythm. Luckily, in the end Ngapeth put the team on the right track and pushed us to the victory. I have no expectations regards to the match between Serbia and Poland, I am not going to watch it.”
Benjamin Toniutti, captain of France: “I am really proud of the team because we stayed in the competition even after the tough losses against the Netherlands, Brazil, and Serbia. Now, the only thing that we can do is to cross our fingers and to support Serbia. I hope they are going to win, so we can go to Turin.”
Jenia Grebennikov, player of France: “It was an important game for us because we want to go to the next round. We hope that Serbia will win against Poland. We gave our maximum in this competition and now our future is in the hands of Serbia. We will see. Nevertheless, I am happy that we played good today.”
Julio Velasco, head coach of Argentina: „It was an emotional game for me because it was my last one as a coach of the national team. It would have been much better if we had won but unfortunately we did not doi it. We played well in some parts of the match but we made too many mistakes as well. I can definetely say that I am proud of my players despite our variable performance during the whole tournament. Most of the teams play at an extremely high level so I can not even guess who will become the world champion.”
Luciano De Cecco, player of Argentina: “Congratulations to France. They made a good game. We finished our journey in the World Championship. We enjoyed every game of it. Now we are ready to go home.”