Varna, Bulgaria, September 21, 2018 - Outstanding Aleksandar Atanasijevic led Serbia to a historical win against France in Pool H at the 2018 FIVB World Championship! The Serbian opposite topped the list of the scorers with the incredible 38 points and the Balkans overpowered Laurent Tillie’s players in a dramatic five-set thriller 3-2 (22-25, 26-24, 25-20, 18-25, 18-16).
Nikola Grbic, head coach of Serbia: „It was a really difficult game as same as every match we have ever played against France. This victory came many years after we won an official game against them so I am proud of our players. We continue to dream because we play really well and we definitely deserve to be where we are now. I hope we will have enough time to recover for tomorrow’s game which is as important as today’s one.”
Aleksandar Atanasijevic, player of Serbia: „Today we played good volleyball. We gave our best. France is one of the strongest teams in the world right now so we are satisfied with this win. There was nothing easy for us till now. In the first round we played against very strong teams including Russia and USA and now we face Poland, France and Argentina but probably it is better like this. Our goal is to qulify for final six and today’s victory will help us a lot.”
Laurent Tillie, head coach of France: “We lost too many matches 3-2 in this World Championship and it is always the same – we think we have the match in our hands and then we make some bad choices, bad mistakes. It is pity because we were playing well today.”
Benjamin Toniutti, captain of France: “We were leading 1-0 and in the second set we were four points ahead. We just missed the opportunity to close the game after the second set. We make too many mistakes in the key moments and unfortunately, that became a pattern for us during the whole championship. We lost three times by 2-3 and 13-15 or 16-18 in the tie-break. It is always the same – too many mistakes in the key moments. It is not possible to win a game with this kind of mistakes.”