Avital Selinger is no longer Dutch NT's coach

  • It is a great news to DUTCH NT,for London 2012,they need a wonderfull coach.
    the method training of Selinger is not suitable for the DUTCH NT.
    In Europe they do not have any technical advantage,
    to DUTCH NT,learning Asia's fast changing tactics was very failure

  • According to the Dutch newspapers, Avital Selinger will be the coach of Dutch NT, but won’t work for Dela Martinus Amstelveen anymore. Most of players of Martinus will play abroad and the team won’t be the same next season. Therefore the Federation is working on a new model. I think that they want Avital Selinger to focus on only NT.


    The other rumor is that Arie Selinger (Avital Selinger’s father) will be the coach of Martinus.

  • It is a great news to DUTCH NT,for London 2012,they need a wonderfull coach.
    the method training of Selinger is not suitable for the DUTCH NT.
    In Europe they do not have any technical advantage,
    to DUTCH NT,learning Asia's fast changing tactics was very failure


    I think, their problem has another origin, than physical, technical or tactical. The problem is that the team was not ready to come up to the same level with Brazil, Russia and China. Because winning big tournaments is not only a pleasure but also a high psychological pressure. These teams are used to compete at top level, and heavy responsibility doesn't affect their gameplay too much. Think about it, how would you play, when nobody expects you to win the big competition? Of course, calmly and freely, with great inspiration and being glad of any positive result. This is the way Dutch team played on WGP07 and before. But then they had won it and everything turned around... A pressure had appeared which they hadn't been ready for. A pressure from federation, from press, from everywhere... even from own families. Everybody started to expect them to win. As if it wasn't enough, the "Road to Beijing" had come to the homestretch and that made the problem even worse.


    My point, is that stopping the Club NT project, when it's only one barrier remained, was a mistake. To the Dutch men's team it took much more than 3 years to win OG. I expect, that if in a couple of years the financial situation of volleyball in Holland won't become better, they decide to renew the project and I hope don't forget to hire a permanent psychologist for the team. The participation to London 2012 is a big question now.

  • Dont forget that the Dutch men did also stop the project and went to play all over the world, that actually is when they started hitting their best level. I think the project has done what it was supposed to, would've been cool to qualify for Olympics, but can't expect them to whilst they've never been in that situation before. Next time they will have experienced it and they will all be more experienced from playing in the top leagues. And I hear they're thinking of continuing the project but with the younger players. Since Ingrid Visser en what's her name (the setter) have retired we will need new players to come supplement the team, so this seems like a good idea. And of course we need more attacking power on the second outside hitter position (where Stam plays now). But I see a bright future for our women ahead. And for our men too!

  • I think the most important thnik for Dutch NT is that those girls won't play together all the time. Maritimus was like Uralochka in 90ies and it also wasn't proper way to improve their skills. They were psychologically tired spendning so much time together. And unfortunetly Dutch league isn't between the strongest in Europe. I'm interested what do you think of club teams like Amstelveen last year. Do you think it is good way for national teams keeping best players all year together

  • Yeah your right that our league here isn't of the best level and I'm sure that doesn't help. They played champions league of course, but that's only a view matches. But the thing in Holland is that we don't have as many people as countries such as Russia, so we have less players to choose from and we really have to make the best of what we have. But then I guess individual players could acquire skills abroad just as well. I guess the whole idea behind the idea of having all of the players play at Martinus Amstelveen, is that everyone gets to train at a high level (with the best players in Holland). And of course since they play together all year you could argue that they have more time to grow as a team. So it makes sense to me, it's just that the league sucks and that's why i think that it's good that all the players are going to play in seperate leagues now. They'll still know how to play as a team when they come back. But yeah it's hard to say which is the best way to create superior team, because its dependant on way mroe factors then whether they play at the same club or not.

  • The negotiations between coach and NeVoBo has come to a deadlock. Both sides took a principle positions, Selinger wants to prepare a team for London, using the same method as before but with younger players. NeVoBo never ever wants the NT coach to be a club coach. Also the coach and federation differently evaluate the results achieved in these years. NeVoBo says it was a failure, coach and the team think, that everything was done right and that it was just not enough time to fully prepare. An oil to the fire had been added by the recently presented book "When you win, you are friend" about the life and work of the team in these three years of training for Beijing. Seems that it remained 3 months for Selinger to be the coach...


    I think, that results of the work can be classified as a sport success and political defeat. So NeVoBo is guilty, not coach ;) But also a confirmation of my thoughts about a psycological troubles has come. Caroline Wensink (if I'm not mistaken) told that the team never had any psycological trainings.

  • Does anybody know if any of the 07/08 Martinus players will be staying with the team for next season (2008/2009)?

  • It is a great news to DUTCH NT,for London 2012,they need a wonderfull coach.
    the method training of Selinger is not suitable for the DUTCH NT.
    In Europe they do not have any technical advantage,
    to DUTCH NT,learning Asia's fast changing tactics was very failure


    Hmm, I liked the way Netherland played and it worked very well at WGP, when they weren't psychologically stressed. I also think that the problem at Euros and Olys Qualification was psychological, not technical and tactical.


    Maybe their way of playing was not conventional modern volleyball, but still interesting to watch. I didn't see many Holland matches to judge, so I'm curious to know what Lightmaster thinks about Holland method of playing.

  • Hmm, I liked the way Netherland played and it worked very well at WGP, when they weren't psychologically stressed. I also think that the problem at Euros and Olys Qualification was psychological, not technical and tactical.


    Maybe their way of playing was not conventional modern volleyball, but still interesting to watch. I didn't see many Holland matches to judge, so I'm curious to know what Lightmaster thinks about Holland method of playing.


    Every team has some special feature, an aspect of the game, which team can handle better, than any other. For example, Italy is a defensive team. They are good in every component but defence is just perfect. Sometimes I think, that Italy has a special mode of play - not allowing the ball to touch the floor on their part of the court. This makes their opponent to become panic-stricken, like 'omg, we can't score a single point!'. This was a way Italy won the WC2007. Russia and Cuba, having players with striking physical parameters, specialize on attack. Russian players have a huge height, Cubans - highest jump and long hands. Attacks, performed by these teams, look like teleporting of the ball, jump-serves look like spikes of other teams. Asian teams, not being so physically gifted, count on super-quick play for not let those giants to set a block.


    Dutch team has a limited resources. Limited people resources and so, not many players to choose from, because of the small population of Holland. And limited material resources, because volleyball is unpopular sport in football country. Their team doesn't have a superb attack or absolute defense. In such conditions they decided to stake on tactics. I can surely say, that main feature of Dutch team is Avital Selinger's special methods of conducting a gameplay. The main idea of the method - is achieving the perfect interaction between players, when every move of every player is subordinated to the single aim of the whole team. Attaining such an interaction turns the group of players into a mechanism which acts like the single thing. Of course, other teams also work on interaction, but in case of Dutch team, we have players which play all club and NT competitions together for almost four years. This allowed to create an unprecedented level of team-play. The team really became a single instrument. Team's gameplay can be compared with a construction robot, which exactly executes commands given to it. You enter a program there, which contains a statements, telling it, in what situations what action should be done. And thats all, if your program doesn't contain mistakes and the robot is faultless, you'll get the result you want.


    There are also a couple of interesting things caused by this method. When other teams substitute a player, they should slightly change a tactics in a game, adopting to a new player. When the player is changed in Dutch team, they continue to play like before. Team doesn't have to adopt to a player, coz all players are already adopted to a team (when you replace a spare part in a machine, it doesn't affect a program loaded, right?). Other thing - is a silent timeouts, when Selinger doesn't say a word. The program is loaded, every part of the robot knows what to do - so, nothing to talk about.


    I don't insist that this method is the best. It has one big advantage and a lot of drawbacks. The advantage is, that if the team is ok and coach chose the right 'program', you would win, no matter who opponent is. Disadvantage here, is a strict requirement to the psycological condition of the players, coz if only one part of mechanism plays bad, it spoils the whole game. The other one is an absence of flexibility. It can be noticed, that Kim Staelens plays a number of prepared combinations, never trying to improvise. Sometimes it can be hard to play without improvisation, especially, when opponent acts in non-usual manner and there is no tactics were made for that.


    Anyway, for me, the Dutch team is the most solid team I've ever seen. I've noticed this feature, when I even didn't know anything about them. And this way of play is the main reason why I like them so much. I only really miss the emotions from players and especially from coach. I can even accept the absence of 'silent' timeouts, if Selinger will replace the silence with a couple of jokes with girls or at least giving some smiles to them.


    If you want to see the true Dutch team performance, don't watch the games after WGP 2007. It was a work of hardly damaged 'robot'.

  • Thanks Lightmaster!! It was a pleasure to read your description of the team. So, to understand the real Netherlands team, we have to re-watch the matches of WGP07. Hopefully I have them. I liked the description team = robot. Kim has to learn to improvise, because not always a prepared combination can work.


    Anyway, I'll rewatch those matches. I remember that it was fun to watch them. They played with spark, that most of the times, unfortunately, lack in Euro teams.

  • 'Robot' - it's my own harsh technical description. As far as I heard, Avital Selinger uses more poetic one. He sees his team like being a musical instrument. Seven players are the seven notes, and his task to play a composition, making all the notes to sound without a false. I don't know if it is true or not, but as for me, notes, written in the stave or program, loaded into machine, are pretty the same things ;)

  • Avital Selinger remains the coach of Dela Martinus Amstelveen, despite the fact that most of top players had left the club! It's hard to decide if it is good news or not. Let's wait for the information about will he still work for the National Team.

  • NeVoBo says it was a failure, coach and the team think, that everything was done right and that it was just not enough time to fully prepare.

    Just curious about the time length. Does Selinger think that the preparation should be 2 Olympic cycles?


    Also, I agree that on court Selinger lacks emotions. This is his character, and probably is not too favorable as a coach. Anyway, I'm not saying that he's not a good coach after all.

  • 10 years and three Olympics is needed to win the Gold. But it happend, that they already missed the first OG from starting the preparation. It will be great if they learn the experience of Brazil NT. Fofao&Co couldn't win the Games for a long time, but had won the first since hiring a psychologist. Maybe this is a necessary condition of success... :what:

  • Martinus Amstelveen, guided by its new coach Avital Selinger ;) , despite the loss of almost all main players, has won the Dutch Supercup again! Caroline Wensink was on court as OPP! :what: Francien Huurman played on her usual MB position.


    Martinus Amstelveen vs Sliedrecht Sport 3:1 (22:25, 25:21, 25:23, 25:17)


    NeVoBo and other Dutch clubs fighted so hard to destroy Martinus NT project and to separate national team and club. The main reason was, that Martinus doesn't allow other clubs to win anything. Well, they successed in that. Martinus is no longer a NT and Selinger isn't its coach.
    The result, we see now, is the big LOL! And it will become even bigger, if new weak Martinus wins a championship again. Somebody can already show a middle finger to all ill-wishers :rolll:

  • The game of last Thursday against Perugia is a new beginning to call for Avital as coach of the NT. Caroline and Francien had said in many intervieuws that they wanted Avital to be the coach of the NT. All the other girls ask for the same.
    Avital shows with this new team how good he can work to talented players, to let them grow to higher level,even better may be, than the girls before in a couple of years.
    He's the best coach in the Netherlands, I don't know what the Nevobo decided now. If the girls wanted him??? :hit: That's easy I think?


    Specially for Lightmaster: this Photo where Avital tells the man that Kim is always the best!!!! You understand it right!