Virna Dias speaks about 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix – Volleyball News
Former Brazilian volleyball star, Virna Dias, recently shared her thoughts on the 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix, which had an amazing run in the last month of August.
Dias was pleased with her teams performance and said, “Despite their loss in the World Grand Prix finals to USA I don’t think Brazil will be too disappointed with their performance.”
She further explained that Brazil played without its key players such as Marianne Steinbrecher (Mari) and Paula Pequeno. Additionally, Natalia Pereira just returned from nursing an injury and could not give out her best performance. Taking this into consideration,
Brazil did well at the Grand Prix. Fernanda Garay, the young new player for Brazil, did a great job and played amazingly well. It was her first appearance at the World Grand Prix but she took full advantage of the opportunity and made her presence felt in
front of the international audience.
Likewise, the other players of the Brazilian squad put up a great fight and showed real team-effort. In Virna’s view, the whole team deserves to be praised for their brilliant play at the World Grand Prix. They started the campaign and worked out success
in the preliminary round robin. Brazil remained undefeated for three straight weeks and compiled a record of 9-0 in the preliminaries. Furthermore, they kept the momentum going in the Final Round and added three more wins in the first spell. Success allowed
them to reach the semi-final stage, where they battled out a convincing victory against archrivals Russia. 13 victories in 13 games before the final showdown was indeed a great honour for Brazil.
In the final match of the 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix, Brazil found a strong competitor in the form of the U.S. team. The Brazilians staged a head to head fight with the Americans but were unable to seize their chances. The U.S. pulled off success in the
final match and crushed the Brazilian dreams of capturing another gold-medal victory at the Grand Prix.
Nonetheless, Dias believes that Team Brazil will be stronger after the return of Paula, Mari, Jaqueline and Natalia in the future. She further added, “I expect the side will be back to full strength at the Pan American Games. However this should not take
away from the United States victory so congratulations to them.”
She also praised the good effort of the American players and especially took out the names of Destinee Hooker and Logan Tom as they were simply amazing in the competition.
Now the upcoming Pan American Games will be a real challenge for Brazil. It will also serve as a good opportunity for them to seek revenge from the U.S. team. Lets’ wait and see what the Pan American Games have in store for Brazil.
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