Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 18, 2016 – Croatia made their way to the FIVB World Grand Prix Group 3 final with a 3-1 victory (25-14, 29-27, 20-25, 25-7) against Peru on Saturday at the Baluan Sholak Sports Palace.
Miroslav Aksentijevic, coach of Croatia: “I will give all my compliments to my team. They performed very well today and we won a very important game. As you know we have a young squad. While some of the players are experienced, all the others are very young. I am very happy that we showed character after the third set and we came back with a great level of volleyball and this is our objective to keep things at this level. We are now happy, but we must forget about this game and immediately prepare for the final tomorrow. We will fight. We will try to give the kind of volleyball that everyone will enjoy.”
Mauro Marasciulo, coach of Peru: “Congratulations to Croatia team. It was an important match for both young players and experienced players. Overall, our team needs to learn how to cope in difficult situations.”
Mia Jerkov, captain of Croatia: “We had great match in Peru and they performed very well. We had different techniques and we felt like we could win the game no matter what technique we put in. We were a little bit sad that we did not manage to win first in Group 3, but we came here with our minds set to win in the semifinals. We did a really good job today. We outplayed them in every aspect and we were focused from the beginning to the end.”
Mirtha Uribe, captain of Peru: “Congratulations to Croatia for a great match today. I think we lost our focus in this match. And this is what we need to do tomorrow, to concentrate on our game.”