Varna, Bulgaria, September 23, 2018 – Poland gets the last ticket for the Finals at the 2018 FIVB Men's World Championship and will have the opportunity to defend the title in Turin! The current champions overpowered Serbia in a straight-set win 3-0 (25-17, 25-16, 25-14) and topped the standing in Pool H! Polish victory №100 in the history of this major volleyball event left France outside the board for a spot in the third round.
Vital Heynen, head coach of Poland: „I have never seen a team of mine playing like this! We were amazing! We fought, we almost did not make mistakes and if we made some, we were immediately back in the game. I am impressed by my team!”
Pawel Zatorski, player of Poland: „We appreciate the moment! We did not expect to qualify for the Finals. We believed but we knew that it is going to be difficult. If we play as agressively as today, we can put in trouble every opponent in the next round. It is not sure that we are going to win but for sure we are going to fight.”
Nikola Grbic, head coach of Serbia: „The truth is that we lost a lot of energy in our previous games in order to qualify for the final six as earliest as possible. So probably today we were not fresh enough to stay in the game. Congratulations to the team of Poland! They played really well since the first serve. They put a lot of pressure on us in the first set and showed great actions in all segments during the whole match. We did not find the key to change the result even with all the substitutions that I made. Now we are thinking about the next phase!”
Uros Kovacevic, player of Serbia: “We did not show our play today. I think we were exhausted and with a lack of energy. We entered the match like this. I am positive that in other circumstances the Polish team would not have been able to beat us that way. I expect tough battles during the Finals. Despite the game today, we already showed what we are capable of and I expect big things in Turin.”
Marko Podrascanin, player of Serbia: “We did not have a lot of energy like in the last games. I want to congratulate the team of Poland, they played a really good match and deserved the victory. However, we achieved our goal till this point, we are in the best six teams in the world and I am really happy about that. We already had really tough groups in Bari and here in Varna, so we already know how to play against best teams. We won against France and Russia and I think Russia is the favourite to win this championship, so our chances are really big.”