Chile won their first match after defeating Peru 3-1
San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, October 20, 2016 - Day two of the South American U21 Men's Championship in Bariloche saw hosts Argentina and Brazil remain undefeated after matches against Colombia and Uruguay respectively. The championship winners will qualify for the 2017 U21 World Championship in the Czech Republic.
The other winner of the day was Chile who won their first match after defeating Peru 3-1.
Friday features matches between Uruguay and Peru at 15.00 local time, Colombia and Brazil at 17.30 and Argentina and Chile at 20.00. All matches will be streamed live on the South American Confederation website www.voleysur.org.
Coach Giovane Gavio led Brazil to a 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-9) victory against Uruguay on Thursday. Fernando Rodrigues scored 15 points. Chile had a difficultmatch against Peru, reacting with an outstanding 21 points in blocking to close the match 3-1 (25-21, 25-17, 29-31, 25-23) with Hector Zambrano topping the score with 19 tallies.
Argentina and Colombia faced each other with the hosts gaining the upper hand 3-1 (25-18, 25-12, 23-25, 25-18). Juan Pablo Moreno from Colombia topped the scoring with 20 tallies while for Argentina, Felipe Benavidez and Jan Martinez scored 16 apiece.
Argentina player Felipe Benavidez said: "The third set started badly for us, something that can happen but we recovered and played again very concentrated in the fourth. This will help us along the competition because it is good to be able to solve problems. It is good to have the support of our people. We have to think of tomorrow's match and follow the same path day after day. Our attitude is very important."
Colombia player Maurizio Puccini said: "It was a hard match and no one knew who would win but our playing level was very good - even better than yesterday. Tomorrow we have a very hard match against Brazil but as long as the ball keeps flying both teams can win. The best of our team is the happiness we feel to be here competing."
Brazil player Fernando Rodrigues said: "We played well today but we still need improvement as there were some silly mistakes. We must change our attitude with our rivals, we cannot give them any chance. Today we played better than yesterday and tomorrow we must play even better."
Uruguay player Mauricio Taroco said: "We played to our utmost in the first two sets. They are stronger and with much more experience and that could be felt in the match. We lost concentration in the third set. But we will improve our performance along the competition."
Peru player Juan Carlos Bustos said: "I believe we are part of a long term project more than looking for good results today. We are new, most of our players very young and we played well against Chile, who always overcome us. We must improve our serve to complicate things for our rivals."
Chile player Hector Zambrano said: "During the match, Peru's serve bothered us. We improved our performances with every set and that is very good. With good spiking we won the match and this competition is very long and has just started."