MATCH INFO

Tokyo, Japan, November 18, 2011 - Press Conference, USA v Japan: Japan pulled off an upset win against a strong USA side on Friday. In doing so, they denied the American’s the three points which would have given them first place in this World Cup. While the USA had already won their ticket to London, taking first in the tournament clearly meant a lot to them.

Japan coach Masayosi Manabe: I knew that China won before the game so I told the team that we at least needed to win the last game in order to finish on a high note. Our defence was really good throughout, and I was really pleased it was working well. Our goal, of course, was qualification, and missing that was disappointing. But our players and staff did a good job overall, so I’m happy.

Japan player Saori Kimura: It was good to win the last game of World Cup. We earned lots of experience from these games and we’ll be sure to try our best in May.

Japan player Yoshie Takeshita: We had good concentration and that helped us win today. The whole tournament was a hard time for us overall. But through that I think we learned a lot. We’re going to do our best to qualify for the Olympics.

Japan player Yukiko Ebata: I really wanted to win this match. I was on the court all the time today, so I felt a strong responsibility to perform. I’ll take a lot away from this. From now, we need to think about qualifying and doing our best in London.

USA coach Hugh McCutcheon: Obviously today we weren’t at our best. Japan played well, certainly in the last half of the tournament; they’ve improved. The most important thing was to gain qualification and we’ve done that. So overall our feeling is one of very strong positive emotion, but obviously tonight a very strong negative emotion too. But we’ll move on and learn from today’s experience and hopefully learn in the future.

On whether an event like this could happen in the US: The sport is popular collegiately but there really isn’t the infrastructure for professional clubs there yet. We have the facilities, but it would be an issue to get significant sponsorship to cover the costs of hosting 12 teams and the travel involved. If you look at least few matches, Japan always plays well at Yoyogi Stadium [at home in Tokyo]. I’m sure any country would want that advantage. After this long international season we need to process this year, find the areas where we need to improve, and analyze what we need to do to be at our best in nine months time [for the Olympics].

On Japan’s top scorer Yukuko Ebata: She had a nice match, no question. Most of our concerns was trying to get our side-out a little stronger and our offense. Japan was playing strong defense. We wanted to block and defend but she got away from us. Bench decisions were more about trying to upgrade our side of the net rather than stop number 14 [Ebata]

USA captain Lindsey Berg: Tonight obviously Japan came out to play. They’re a really good team and if the other team doesn’t come out to play… We had a lost opportunity; Japan played amazing… [pauses] I’m sorry if I’m emotional here, I just care a lot. But we qualified [for the Olympics] and that’s positive. We had a great tournament, but we had missed opportunities with Germany and tonight with Japan. I just wanna win and that’s why I’m here. But overall its been positive.