Boryeong, Korea, June 19, 2019 – Korea celebrated defeating Asian rivals Japan in the 2019 women’s FIVB Volleyball Nations League pool in Boryeong on Wednesday.
Japan player Sarina Koga: “I feel disappointed looking back at the match today as we had many opportunities to score a point, yet we were unable to utilize those chances properly. The Korean players had a very fast tempo, which made it very hard to catch up. One of Korea’s assets was their strong serves.”
Japan coach Nakada Kumi: “Today there were many fans and members of the press present, which allowed for an exciting match. Although our team can no longer enter the VNL finals, we can now take this opportunity to practice and mend our team’s mistakes. Japan doesn’t have a star player like Korea does with Kim Yeon Koung, so we must work on our team plays. If we do not work on our defense, we will not be able to play against teams with strong serves such as Korea.”
Korea captain Kim Yeon Koung: “If our serves are good in the beginning of the match, then our game plays out well in general, which was the case today. Compared to yesterday we were able to score in crucial moments, which enabled us to raise the tempo of the game and keep the Japanese team from catching up. Something that helped us take the victory today was our mindset. We think that we may lose against other teams, but we can never lose against Japan.”
Korea player Kim Heejin: “There was an importance in winning the game itself, but the greater importance is that we were able to reduce the amount of careless mistakes which helped us win more points. The “Korean-Japanese” games were always our main match, so the players were more concentrated and focused during the game which allowed us to take the victory over the Japanese team.”
Korea coach Stefano Lavarini: “First I would like to congratulate the girls on their victory today. The match felt very different as the title of the “Korean-Japanese Game” affected the atmosphere of the stadium as all the fans and others were excited. About the match, we had much higher quality in offence, and in defensive situations, we improved from yesterday as we were able to connect the first and second touch to the attack.”
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