Dobriana Rabadzhieva spikes against Samanta Fabris and Bozana Butigan
Varazdin, Croatia, July 22, 2017 – In an FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2017 match between two young teams, Bulgaria shut out Croatia, but for both sides what is most important is gaining experience.
Ivan Dimitrov, coach of Bulgaria: "Today we played a lot better than yesterday and we responded very well after time-outs showing that we can play even better. I hope we can play the same way against Argentina and we can win. We will probably make some changes to our starting line-up and change positions for some players."
Dobriana Radadzhieva, captain of Bulgaria: "We showed our game today, but I should say that both teams are young. Croatia has only one experienced player here and she did not even play in her position. I am proud of my girls as we kept fighting today and we showed that we are better. It is very easy for a young team to lose focus during play, but we kept our focus through the end of the match."
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Miroslav Aksentijevic, coach of Croatia: "Today and yesterday we did not play well enough. We had a lot of problems in our reception and our game after receiving the serve, and it is impossible to play well if you do not have stability in your game. Our main goal here is to gain experience for our young players in both tactics and technique."
Samanta Fabris, captain of Croatia: "We are disappointed. At times we showed that we can play very well, but we had a lot of ups and downs during the match. We have to forget our loss today, even though it is not easy to simply forget a loss, but we will be ready for Puerto Rico tomorrow."