RUSSIA WIN THANKS TO IMPROVED SECOND HALF
In Group A’s first game of the day, Russia beat Japan in Nantes. Top scorers for both sides were Atman, Dibirov & Shishkarev for Russia scoring six each while Doi scored five for Japan.
With Japan keeping up with their opponents for 45 minutes, one asks the questions: Was it nervosity? Or just a nice warm-up for the Russians? Regardless of the reason, Japan’s start to the game wasn’t encouraging with Timur Dibirov and his partners taking full advantage of their opponents’ lost balls to take an early lead, 6:1 after six minutes. A time-out
A time-out taken by Antonio Carlos Ortega, Japan’s coach, helped to improve their game. Hiroki Shida finally showed his skills with long distance shots, while Masatake Kimura was finally making some saves in the goal. Within minutes, Japan was back in the game, with the Russian’s only leading by three (12:9). Japan gradually took confidence, often using seven players on the court and an aggressive defence. Even though Pavel Atman, with four goals, was trying his best, his teammates were experiencing too many defensive problems to create a gap again. At half-time, Russia was only leading by two, 18:15.
After the break, the Nantes crowd gradually took side for Japan. No surprise, then, to see the Asian side come back into the game, their speed proving to be a big advantage against the tall physical Russians. Ten minutes after the break, they were only one goal down (25:24). Sadly for them, they would never get the chance to even the score. Vadim Bogdanov, stepping in the Russian goal, immediately started to make saves, giving the opportunity to Timur Dibirov and Pavel Atman to score easy goals on fast breaks. This resulted in a growing lead for Russia with the end of the game approaching, some nice in-flight shots, and a ten-goal victory, the biggest lead of the game, for the Russians (39:29).
Post-match reactions:
Head coach Ortega (Japan): “I don’t think that ten goals was really a deserved loss for us. When you are playing against teams with players that are twenty kilos bigger and twenty centimetres taller than you, you have to try new things. Sadly, those new things tired us out and we paid the price in the end”.
Head coach Torgovanov (Russia): “In the first half, Japan started with their 0-6 defence, and we found the solution easily, but our problem started when they changed to a more aggressive defence. The difference wasn’t not much because we took the ten-goal lead in just a few minutes. I think that the difference was in our goalkeepers’ performance.”
