In Cooperation with the FIVB.

Portugal and Poland clinch second victories on road to Beijing

Portugal's Hugo Gaspar celebrates a point

Espinho, Portugal, May 31, 2008- Portugal and Poland repeated their success as both clinched their second victory in a raw over Puerto Rico and Indonesia respectively in the second day of the 2008 Men’s World Qualification tournament at Nave Municipal de Espinho in Portugal on Saturday. The winners will compete for the only Olympic ticket of the round robin tournament when they meet in the third and last day on Sunday. The Olympic qualifier of the competition will be either Portugal for the first time ever in their Volleyball history or the usual big force Poland.
 The organizing team Portugal made it two out of two after they fought out for four sets to clinch an important victory over Puerto Rico 3-1 (25-15, 22-25, 25-11, 25-18) in a thriller encounter lasted 100 minutes of exciting Volleyball action and attended by the biggest no of spectators in the competition till now. After Portugal won the first set widely, Puerto Rico team emerged back and won the best set of the match 25-22 before Portugal led by the superstar Flavio Cruz emerge again to win two successive set that bring the match and improved their win- loss ratio to 2-0 to come at the top of the tournament with the point ratio ahead of Portugal at the end of the tournament’s second day, while Puerto Rico dropped to 0-2 and lost the hope of Olympic ticket. Cruz and the usually superior Hugo Gaspar who led the competition scorers made it easy for the host to win the match that made them one more step towards their first ever Olympic ticket.
 As the Olympic ticket has become nearer, Portugal head coach Jorge Schmidt was happy to bring his team to the right tract. He said cheerfully in the press conference after the match “I think we did a good job in the last three weeks and I’m happy with my team’s performance. Today we showed good attitude but in the second set we made many mistakes that cost us the set. If we play tomorrow like that we will catch the Olympic but I am very calm because I trust my players.”
 What was strange is that the Head Coach of Puerto Rico, Carlos Cardona said that his team is the worst in this tournament which was something unusual from a coach. “I think that Puerto Rico is the weakest team in this tournament. We never have been at the level of the game. We made several mistakes in lots of points. We intended to arrive here with a good volleyball but we couldn’t do so the players are frustrated,” said Cardona sadly.
 Poland clinched a stunning victory over Indonesia 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-23) in 63 minutes to come second in the tournament at the end of the second day. Poland improved their win-loss ratio to 2-0, while Indonesia dropped to 0-2 and lost any hope of the Olympic ticket. The Poland potent spike services played the greatest role in this victory specially it wasn’t adapted by the Indonesian players in reception. Although the Asian team came back many times in the match, Poland with their big guns Sebastian Swiderski and Mariusz Wlazly returned back in tract as both were the match scorers with 13 points each and sent their unstoppable spikes to all directions. The experienced setter Pawel Zagumny also controlled the net during the entire match through his efficient combination served to the backline players.
 Poland Head coach Raul Lozano is eager to set the third victory in the last day of the round robin tournament. He wasn’t convinced with his team’s performance for the second match in a row. “I think that we have to win the three matches if we want to go to the Olympic Games” he said. “Indonesia had some good attacks. It wasn’t our best match and we try to do better tomorrow against Portugal in the match of Qualification.”
Head Coach of Indonesia, Xu Xinyu was happy in spite of this loss because his team performed better than the first day. “I think that today we play better than yesterday, and I hope that tomorrow we play even better. Poland has a great team, although they change some players during this match," said Xinyu