Argentina and Brazil reach South American U21 Championship final undefeated

San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, October 22, 2016 - The fourth day of the South American U21 Men's Championship at the Pedro Estremador Stadium featured victories for Brazil and Argentina, both undefeated in the tournament. The two teams will meet in the final at 18.00 on Sunday and play for a berth at the 2017 U21 World Championship in the Czech Republic. The match will be broadcast live on the South American Volleyball Federation website www.voleysur.org and on DeporTV.

The first match of the day saw Brazil defeat the young Peruvian team 3-0 (25-9, 25-11, 25-15) with substitutes giving the usual starting line-up a rest ahead of the final against Argentina. The top scorer was Gabriel Bertolini with 13 tallies. Brazil have won their four matches in the competition without losing a single set.

Then, Colombia and Chile played to qualify for the bronze medal match. After a close start, Colombia came out on top to win 3-0 (25-23, 25-20, 25-16). Gustavo Larrahondo scored 18 points in the winning effort. Colombia will now face Peru for third place at 10.00 on Sunday, while Chile will play Uruguay at 15.30.

Argentina also defeated Uruguay 3-0 (25-5, 25-14, 25-6) with coach Alejandro Grossi's players in 'training mode' for Sunday's final.

Post-match comments:
Ignacio Espelt (Argentina): "I was lucky to play from the very beginning and I think I gave my utmost. Tomorrow we will face the match we trained all this time for, so we must concentrate and give our best. It is hard to rest tonight but we must be calm and play our rhythm."

Juan Manuel Negrin (Uruguay): "We knew that Argentina had a much higher level. Our goal was to play without making too many non-forced errors. We could hardly fulfil this but now we must be calm and think of tomorrow's match to obtain a victory."

Matheus Silva (Brazil): "We are very anxious but the team is focused and we have prepared ourselves a lot for this important and demanding competition, so we are ready for tomorrow's match. We want to play it giving our utmost and get the title and the ticket for next year's World Championship."

Marcelo Gutiérrez (Peru): "The match was very hard, but we stepped onto the field thinking of playing well, to make good use of the chance of participating in this important championship and facing the strong team of Brazil. They played very well but we never stopped fighting. Defeats are also experiences to learn from, we must think of the positive facts and keep growing."

Lucas Lavin (Chile): "We must learn to cope with match pressure. We are mostly very young and the lack of experience can be seen at any match. Tomorrow we want to win. We must concentrate a lot because Uruguay want to win this last match too."

Gustavo Larrahondo (Colombia): "We feel good that we could show our rhythm and our training. The team had a good performance. We are all concentrating very hard and tomorrow we will play to win the bronze medal. A medal is always very important."

Fixtures - October 23
10.00 local time: Peru-Colombia
15.30 - Chile-Uruguay
18.00 - Argentina-Brazil