Tokyo, Japan, November 30, 2007: Comments from the official FIVB press conference after the Brazil-Argentina game on Friday.

Brazil

Head Coach Bernardo Rezende: I want to congratulate Jon Uriarte for the good job they are doing with such a young team. I agree that the middle blockers are improving a lot, as are the outside hitters, and the setters also. They are on the right way to qualifying for the Olympics and their other goals. About the match, we are not happy because we played under our average in reception for sure and that makes such a bad condition for our attack to play well. For Russia tomorrow we must search inside because it is a completely different match against such an experienced and powerful team as Russia. We have to play much better tomorrow and control their power and serve and try to use our speed.

Captain Giba: It was a good match today. Brazil played very well. I saw videos and Argentina have a good serve, but Brazil stayed very concentrated and played very good. Argentina is so difficult to play against because they have a very good defence. All the time I say forget about this match and think of the next match because all the time the next match is the most difficult.

(On playing Russia on Saturday): It is difficult to play tomorrow because we have four teams and three places to go to Peking. Every match is a big one. Brazil-Russia is very difficult. Russia are playing very well in this tournament and I will go back to the hotel and study for tomorrow. Not only Semen Poltavskiy has a good service. All the players have a very good service. I could see it and feel it in the World League final this year their very, very strong service. Brazil have a good reception; today it was not very good but tomorrow is another game.

Argentina

Head Coach Jon Uriarte: Even though we lost, in some areas we can evaluate this match as taking some steps ahead for our team. We are very satisfied about how our two middle blockers are evolving, especially in attack. Today was a big challenge and I think they accomplished that. To play Brazil is very tough work. We are learning a lot and are looking forward to finishing this competition with a clear idea of what we need to do to qualify for the Olympics at the next step. We are happy about how our teamwork is evolving.

Captain Marcos Milinkovic: The first and second sets we played well. Brazil has different characteristics from other teams and that is why we started with a different line-up compared to the other games.  We did not play well in the third set and that might be the difference between Brazil and our team.