FIVB World League 2007 --- Polish fans shout “Bulgaria” – press conference

Bulgaria's 2:3 (25:21 20:25 25:21 23:25 12:15) victory against Brazil in the first match of the Final Round of World League 2007 was a surprise for many spectators. Supported by friendly Polish fans, the Bulgarians already think about winning their next match – this time against Russia. Coach Bernardo Rezende admitted that his team made too many mistakes but the difference was just one point in score and three mistakes in statistics.
Ricardo Garcia (Team Captain, Brazil): We didn’t have a lot of training before the match. We made to many mistakes in serves and were not effective in our attacks.
Plamen Konstantinov (Team Captain, Bulgaria): Both teams started the game nervously, both made too much errors in the beginning. We made more in the first set, they made more in the second but after that we both played a good game. We’re very happy about this victory – you don’t win against World Champions everyday. We don’t have a guaranteed advance to semifinals yet. Now we must concentrate on the game tomorrow, because we don’t want to wait for the result of the Brazil – Russia match if we loose against Russia tomorrow.
Bernardo Rezende (Head Coach, Brazil): Congratulations to Bulgaria on their victory first. It was a game of many mistakes but both teams gave what they had to give. Now we must focus and prepare to the match against Russia. Serve, block and counterattacks didn’t work well – that’s the reason for such a result.

This is the first real challenge this season, with all respect to Finland, Canada and Korea. Bulgaria is a different kind of a team, very strong physically.

The difference in score was just one point and three errors in statistics. We like the rhythm of such matches and this is just a beginning. Now we concentrate on the match with Russia. I will also try to improve my coaching in the next match.

Martin Stoev (Head Coach, Bulgaria): It was a beautiful match between two strong teams but at the same time there were too many mistakes on both sides. Unfortunately, we couldn’t use our best weapon - strong serve and our block didn’t work in the beginning of the game. The good thing about this match is not only that we won. It’s also that after four subsequent losses the young players showed, that they are good fighters and that they can win against anybody.