What a match by Turkey!
On paper, USA should have won this match knowing that the team is loaded with Olympians and star players BUT the young Turkish team caught the Americans by surprise. Opposite hitter Meryem Boz led her team to with 17 points while 20104 World Championship MVP Kim Hill scored 19 points for the hosting team.
TURKEY 3-2 USA (28-26, 25-19, 20-25, 24-26, 16-14)
In case you didn’t know, the last time Turkey won against USA was during the preliminary round of the 2014 FIVB Grand Prix.
After the match, Coach Kiraly admitted that the initial lineup did not work well for his team but remains proud on how his players responded after losing the first 2 sets. The Kim Hill-Kelsey Robinson combo was not able to come up with the result he had hoped for.
Also at one point, 4 American outside hitters were on the court at once since Turkey’s serves were too much to handle for libero Justin Wong-Orantes.
Here’s what Coach KK said at the post match conference:
“Turkey is a really good team. We are a good team. Battles like that will happen a lot. This was only match number two. I liked how our team responded down 2-0 and came storming back. We even had a swing to go up 15-14, but didn’t quite put it down to the floor. Turkey played really good volleyball and we are thankful because teams will bring a lot of good at us and that will make us better.
Turkey played a very disciplined game. They are very well coach. They are young, they never stopped coming at us. We have a target on our chest and so those kinds of matches are good for us.”
A lot of people are blaming some USA players for the loss but let’s not forget that Turkey worked really hard the entire match and they are also coached by the great Giovanni Guidetti. At the PMC, Coach Guidetti acknowledged that his players are mentally strong despite of their age and inexperience.
“I don’t know when the last time Turkey beat the USA. I don’t think many times in history of Turkish volleyball. We are just at the beginning of the tournament where every team is not really ready and making many experiments. But of course, this kind of match is difficult for this young group because we are facing one of the best teams in the world. We are leading 2-0, and even when they come back we were able to win the tiebreak. That means our team is mentally strong and did not give up, and that is the most important thing. In the fifth set we didn’t make too many mistakes. Our serve worked really well, and our block worked really, really well and that was the difference.”
Team captain Eda Erdem-Dundar, who scored the winning block, also revealed how she and her teammates won the match.
Click here for the full match report.
HEAD TO HEAD USA VS TURKEY PER FIVB:
• United States have won 10 of their previous 12 major world level encounters against Turkey.
• World level major competitions are: Olympic Games, World Championships, World Grand Prix, World Cup and Grand Champions Cup.
• Turkey beat United States 3-1 at the 2008 World Grand Prix and 3-2 at the 2014 World Grand Prix, both in the preliminary round.
• United States won in straight sets at the 2016 World Grand Prix, their only previous major world level meeting in the United States.
• Their most recent major world level encounter came at the 2017 World Grand Prix where USA won 3-1.
Click here to view the full schedule with updated results.
FIVB IMAGES