mobanmarketPoland with fantastic Bartman won their last game in Toronto with hosts, Brazil beat Finland.
Poland started this meeting with a little pressure, because they lost one match the day before with Finland. At the beginning the game was equal, but then Canadians started going ahead of their rival. The hosts had good attack and Poles couldn’t catch them up, so they lost the first part very easily 17:25.
In the next part Polish team had a real bad luck. Piotr Nowakowski (middle blocker) made an unfortunate move and he got an injury of his knee. How bad it is, we don’t know yet. Since then, Polish team was two times more determined. They scored a couple of points and after that they just kept doing a good work and they beat Canada in this second set. After that Polish block and attack were working really well. Canadians couldn’t be a threat for Bartman, Winiarski or Kosok (who replaced Nowakowski). It was fantastic performance of Zbigniew Bartman, he scored 31 points for his team. Poland was on fire for the rest of this game and they achieved three-points victory over Canada.
Fred Winters (captain of Canada): Poland was much better today. I thought we would be ready especially after a good first set. But in the last three sets we needed to do a better job. They had so many blocks we couldn’t score. We need to improve our hitting game.
Glenn Hoag (coach of Canada): Poland gave us a volleyball lesson tonight. At times we looked like a junior team. It was a difficult match. We couldn’t execute. Every match from here on in will be a test for us and a learning process.
Marcin Mozdzonek (captain of Poland): We are very happy with the win. We set ourselves up well for the rest of the season. At the start of the match we were not focused but we stuck to the game plan and it worked really well.
Andrea Anastasi (coach of Poland): I’m happy we came back to play a very good match. It wasn’t perfect but our defence and block were good. This is always a hard tournament. You have to fight hard to get the win.
Brazil got their first victory in current edition of the World League. Finland displayed a well-balanced attack in the first set with four players earning four points or more. The Finns had a scare when they squandered a 21-16 lead as Brazil went on a four-point run, which was highlighted by two blocks by Sidao and a service ace by setter Bruno Rezende. But Finland prevailed to win this first part. The loss finally seemed to wake up the Brazilian team. They completely dominated the second, highlighted by consecutive blocking points by Wallace, Sidao and Thiago and two straight service aces by Wallace. Finland played much better in the third set, which featured great defence by both teams resulting in spectacular rallies. But with Wallace, Thiago, Mauricio and Sidao hammering bullets, it was just too much for Finland to handle.
The Finns went down fighting in a classic fourth set. Thanks to a 13-point performance in the set by Wallace, Brazil prevailed. Wallace tied the set at 29-29 and scored the go-ahead kill as well. Earlier he erased a 22-23 deficit with three straight points, including two on the block.
Bruno Rezende (captain of Brazil): Finland continues to improve every year. We are happy with our win; we started to play like a team by helping each other. It was a very important victory for us. We want to make sure that we make the World League final round.
Bernardo Rezende (coach of Brazil): This was a very tough tournament. All the teams fought hard and it made for some wonderful volleyball for the public. Our teamwork today was a little more consistent. We didn’t do as well as we wanted here but we are headed in the right direction.