16-Nov, start time: 15:05, end time: 16:26 - Attendance: 7,400

FRA	3	25	25	25	-	-	75
VEN	0	23	21	21	-	-	65

Match Description:

France Make Winning Start against Venezuela
France survived a potentially tricky opening match at the men's World Cup of Volleyball when they downed Pan American Games gold medalists Venezuela 3-0 at Site B in Nagano.

The European Continental vice-champions made a promising start to their Olympic qualifying effort with a 25-23, 25-21, 25-21 victory against the aggressive attacking style of the Venezuelans.

In a tight opening to the first set, both sides showed glimpses of what they are capable of with some entertaining play in offense and defense, especially from the spiking of France's MIP Stephane Antiga and Laurent Capet, and Venezuela's Thomas Ereu and Luis Diaz. There was little between the two sides as they jostled for an initiative on the way to 23-23, until a service error from Venezuela's Ivan Marquez and a block from French captain Dominique Daquin allowed the Europeans to close out the set.

France took an early lead at the start of the second, which they carried into a 13-8 advantage following a superb piece of defense from the increasingly influential Frantz Granvorka and consecutive errors from Venezuela. Two winning blocks and a spike from Daquin moved them 22-16 ahead and despite the battling efforts of Ronald Mendez their lead was never in serious jeopardy as they took a two-set lead.
The French again took control of the third set at 15-10, as setter Mathias Patin found his attackers with growing accuracy and Venezuela continued to make too many unforced errors to stand any chance of closing the deficit.

Comments:

"For the first game of a long competition it was a very good thing for us to win 3-0. The quality of our serve was good, and we also had a good block and defense. But we must continue to work and concentrate as we have many more tough matches ahead, starting with Brazil tomorrow."
PHILIPPE BLAIN
Head coach, France

"We have only been together for the past eight days, which perhaps is not long enough to prepare for this competition. It was too short for us to be in the best shape. We have many other very good teams to play against so we must get fitter and focus more on playing as a team."
MIGUEL CAMBERO
Head coach, Venezuela

"Our team's condition is good, we're satisfied with our fitness and we have trained very hard together for this competition. We had a little trouble at the beginning of the game, but we then started to play better in the middle. This was a very important first step, and winning 3-0 was also important because we must conserve our energy for a very long competition."
DOMINIQUE DAQUIN
Captain, France

"Having played against France I can now appreciate that they have real power and potential. They will be a very difficult team to beat."
ENARDO GOMEZ
Captain, Venezuela

Official Result:

Match statistics (P-2) - PDF