Japan coach Kumi Nakada greets Argentina coach Guillermo Orduna
Yokohama, Japan, September 29, 2018 - Japan claimed a comprehensive 3-0 (25-15, 25-13, 25-12) win over Argentina in their 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship opener on Saturday, but coach and players alike insisted they were far from satisfied with the performance and are striving for further improvement.
Japan coach Kumi Nakada: We were under quite a lot of pressure, but nonetheless kept our concentration to the end to get our first win, which was very good. Today we dealt really well with service, we were able to disrupt the opposition when they served and then from a high set were able to return and attack. However, I think we need to do better with the accuracy of our attacks when I think of the matches we have to come.
Japan’s Kanami Tashiro: Today I was very nervous but the opposition made mistakes that helped us and enabled us to find our rhythm. However, I have to admit that the accuracy of our combinations wasn’t perfect.
Japan’s Erika Araki: Tonight we wanted to play with a sense of momentum. That’s what we talked about before the match, and we wanted to create our own momentum and were able to do so. Throughout the competition I hope that we will be able to keep growing through each match.
Argentina captain Emilce Sosa: Tonight was the first match of the championship and it was a very hard result for us. We now need to change something. Japan played some very quick volleyball which we couldn’t quite catch up with. We’ve been in Japan for one week but maybe aren’t yet at the level to be able to cope with this speed. Overall I think we played quite well, but unfortunately we couldn’t get the result.
Argentina coach Guillermo Orduna: Playing against Japan in our opening game was a very difficult, very demanding thing to do, but we knew that and to cope with the high level volleyball of Japan we need more experience. We managed to hold onto the play to some extent and in the first set played in a good rhythm, however in the third set two of our players got injured, after which it was difficult to maintain the level of our play.