Francisco Cruz, Dominican Republic:

“We come to this tournament with a very young team. Seven of my players have the age to participate in the next edition of the U-20 Championships. Last time we participated in this event, we finished in the ninth position and are goal is to improve that performance. Being realistic we are going to try very hard to compete in the round for the 5 to 8 places.”

 Luciano Pedulla, Italy: “This round is very difficult. We have to play against strong teams like China, Russia and Dominican Republic. I don’t know Puerto Rico and Egypt very well. We hope to start well and finish in the top two positions and advance to the final phase. We are coming from a good European tournament but the team really didn’t have much time of preparation.”

Cai Bing, China: “We will do our best against a very strong competition. This is a very tough pool but I am confident of my team’s chances. We are going to play match by match and I expect to play better and better with the tournament.”

Abd El Kader Raouf, Egypt: “We are really very happy to participate in this event. We have lot to learn from three different volleyball schools present in this pool, China, Russia and Italy. It is very difficult pool but I am looking forward to see an exciting competition.” Spanish

Luis Garcia, Puerto Rico:

“We finished in third place during our continental tournament in Winnipeg last year. My team is very good in defence and overall performance with good fundamental volleyball. I want to go to the second round and battle for the 5 to 8 place.”

Rishat Gilyazutdinov, Russia:

“Our team has worked very hard and that is very important. Everyone wants to finish first but there are a lot of good teams with the same opportunities. All I can say is that we are here to win.”