Grankin (5) and Pavlov (7)
At the end, Andrey Voronkov’s side won and qualified for the semifinals.
“We knew that France with their young players was going to put up a real fight and we were ready for this. My primary goal was to break their defense system and we did so, thereby being able to play our game” concluded Russia head coach Andrey Voronkov.
“We are obviously happy with our victory after a very tough game with France. Today it turned out that we are better than France” Russia team captain Sergey Makarov said. “France performed well and we had some problems but we eventually managed to make it through. Their players are young and very talented so I think France will be a very tough opponent in the near future. We now want to relax for a while and start preparing for the semis”.
“It is always very tough to be eliminated from a competition especially after you have performed as well as we did in the group stage” said France team captain Benjamin Toniutti. “Today we played a good game but the best team in the world was standing on the other side of the net. I am proud of my team because we have a very young roster but we performed well. I think we have a bright future ahead”.
“We are sad because we wanted to fulfill our dream and play the semis. We tried to perform well especially in defense, but we did so only for one set. We nevertheless fought until the very last point of each set and I hope this game will be a valuable experience for my players. Hopefully next time we will be able to beat Russia” said France mentor Laurent Tillie.
Read our coverage page at European Championship 2013 M.
