Matosinhos, Portugal, July 10, 2016 – Led by their outstanding star player Wouter Ter Maat (28 points), the team of coach Gido Vermeulen saw off Turkey in four sets 25-23, 28-30, 25-22, 25-22 on Sunday afternoon. Read here what the coaches and players said after the match.
The Netherlands coach Gido Vermeulen: It was a great battle between two good teams. Our team has many young players that gave a positive feedback, turning the score around, when the starting players were not delivering. Yesterday we were disappointed after the loss against Portugal because we believed that we were better. Eventually we have managed to cope with it and win today.
The Netherlands captain Jasper Diefenbach: It was a complicated match for both teams but I am very proud by the way that we played, especially our younger players. We had little time to cope with the loss against Portugal but today we played focused. It is a very good result for us as our goal was to reach the Final Four.
Turkey coach Emanuele Zanini: Congratulations to the Netherlands, they played very well. The Dutch wanted the Bronze medal very hard, while my players were not that focused on that goal and maybe still thinking of yesterday's defeat against Canada. We had little time to recover from the loss but this is part of the growing process as my players are still young.
Turkey player Gokhan Gokgoz: Our team is very young and it is the first time that we are playing at this level, so we have to be happy about it. Our goal was to reach this Final Round but our main objective is to qualify for Tokyo 2020. We took the silver medal at the U23 Championship and reached now the finals of World League Group 2 – it is a good result.