HELSINKI, June 9 -- Finland beat China 3-1 in a Group 2 match of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) World League on Friday.
The Hartwall Arena in Helsinki was packed with young Finnish fans giving loud applauses to the Finnish players, who showed enough patience and consistence during difficult times.
The Chinese players won the second set, but kept making mistakes in the fourth.
Jiang Chuan scored the game-high 23 points for China, but none of his teammates got more than 10 points.
Sivula Urpo took 12 points, Elviss Krastins got 11 points and Sauli Sinkkonen 10 points for Finland.
Chinese captain Zhong Weijun said: "We made a lot of mistakes during the match. We are a new team, and we still have chances to improve. We believe we will do better in the future."
Zhong said he was impressed by the Finnish players' coordination and defense.
China head coach Raul Lozano said the Chinese team played better than Thursday when they lost to Australia.
"We saw another team today, a team that corrected many aspects that we didn't make good yesterday," Lozano told Xinhua that he wants to keep on improving the team and to correct wrongdoings step by step.
The Argentine legend was the first foreign coach employed by Chinese men's national volleyball team in history. He got the position only in April 2017.
On his part, Finnish chief coach Tuomas Sammelvuo attributed the victory to the players. "We coach staff didn't do a good job today, but the players managed to find solutions. He named China's high ball attack as one of the headaches, but I think we were better in service and reception than China."
The FIVB Group 2 matches are held simultaneously this weekend in Finland, Japan and the Czech Republic. Also on Friday, Australia beat Slovakia by 3-0 in Helsinki.