Coach Rezende is happy with his team's 3-1 defeat of France
Nancy, France, July 3, 2016 - Brazil overpowered France 3-1 (25-21, 26-24, 22-25, 25-21) in Nancy on Sunday.
Bruno Mossa Rezende, captain, Brazil:
It may have looked like there was a psychological war between Earvin and I, but actually it was more of a joke. We don’t have any problem, any psychological battle. It’s more than a friendship, we are like brothers. In the third set he told me “I have to try something different”, he tried different things, he gave out team a look. I know him, I know if you give him these important things he can be also better. So I just tried not to look to much in his direction. I think it was a beautiful game for the audience.
Pierre Pujol, player, France: It was an intense physical battle, because they put a lot of pressure on us, starting with service, I hadn’t seen a team serve so hard for so long in a very long time, and after they have such builds at the net that if you give in to physical fight, which we may have wrongly done sometimes, you find yourself impaled on their 2-3 tall blockers, which put a huge pressure. I we had managed to bypass that from time to time, I think we’d still be playing.
Laurent Tillie, head coach, France : It was a very good game, with a lot of fighting, intensity, energy, I think the Brazilian block killed us, they almost played the perfect game, they made very few mistakes, they put a huge pressure on the service, they had very diverse plays, and we didn’t manage to stop them. But well. It’s a satisfaction for me because it was a beautiful game.
It also allowed players like d’Almeida, Lafitte, even Lyneel to bring something. Pujol too who had the opportunity to play the whole game. It was very interesting because we didn’t give up and we lost in very tight sets, maybe we lacked lucidity and experience, but mainly Brazil was very strong physically.
Bernardo Rezende, coach, Brazil: I’m happy to have played against France because we’re going to have a very tough Final Six, and we have to get every guy ready, it demands a lot of energy. It was a good intense match, and I hope we can do even better in Poland.
A couple players could not play because of small injuries, we hope they recover for Krakow, but those who played, played very well, it was a very physical match, Ngapeth here, Rossard there, but the youngsters like Douglas for example, Mauricio Borges also they played very well. It was good to have a good fight to prepare for the finals. Energy and intensity like this, it’s a good preparation.