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Egypt Plays Japan
seeking second victory in the second weekend
 Alexandria,
Egypt, June 18, 2008- Egypt Men’s Volleyball team will
meet Japan 20 and 21 June 2008 in the second weekend of
the intercontinental round of the 2008 FIVB World League
at Mubarak Hall in Alexandria Egypt.
The matches will be very important in the tough
competition of Pool D where the four teams of the group
were level at the end of the first weekend with the same
win – loss Ratio of 1-1.
Egypt started their World League career with a victory
over Poland in a thriller five set match 3-2 before
Poland survived and took revenge to win the second match
3-1. Egypt head coach Ahmed Zakaria is eager to continue
the success of the first weekend when Egypt edged Poland
in their first match to achieve their first ever World
League victory and this time against Japan he is
optimistic to secure two victories at home, but he
stated that he needs the home crowd support that played
a great role in the victory against Poland. “We want
more support from our energetic spectators who usually
play a great role in our historic victories in the last
few years,” Said the Egyptian coach. “I think we will
give the chance to some new players this time to prepare
all the list of the players for the greatest event of
the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
On the other hand Japan team arrived to Alexandria on
Wednesday directly from China after their matches of the
first weekend against their team where they took over
China 3-2 in the first match before losing the second in
the same score. The Japanese team will practice their
first training session on Thursday before playing Egypt
on Friday.
The visitors came with the full star studded team led by
the efficient spiker Kunihiro Shimizu who scored 55
points in the two matches of the first weekend against
China as well as Tatsuya Fukuzawa and the team captain
Takeshi Kitajima. Japan team is physically and
technically ready after they secured the last Olympic
Ticket to Beijing following their victory in the World
Olympic Qualifications in their homelands early this
month.
Egypt played Japan three times in the last three years
all in Japan, the first was in the 2005 Grand Champions
Cup, the second in the 2006 World Championship and the
third in the 2007 World Cup and what was exciting is
that all the matches went to tiebreak 3-2 for Japan.
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