Croatia 2017 NT

  • I ovu su djevojke koje cu igrati u Osijeku "Dvorana Gradski Vrt"
    Tehničarke: Ana Grbac i Matea Ćurak
    Korektorice: Samanta Fabris i Katarina Barun Šušnjar
    Primačice/pucačice: Lucija Mlinar, Karla Klarić, Katarina Luketić, Katarina Pavičić
    Srednje blokerice: Ivana Prokopić(Miloš), Ema Strunjak, Božena Butigan i Lara Dežulović
    Libero: Rene Sain i Nikolina Božičević.

  • so it's possible to have Barun as OP and Fabris as OH simultaneously, though I find it very risky because they don't have super stable passing OH and I think neither Klaric nor Mlinar can deal with it :whistle:

    Gold medal - World League 2013 Prediction Game
    Bronze medal - World League 2012 Prediction Game

  • And you were right. This can only work if you have OH who can cover Fabris with reception even Fabris didn't have that bad reception at all, but you need to have amazing libero with amazing reception too and that is not case with our NT.


    We had TERRIBLE performance in our country but I don't want to talk about negative things so I will focus with positive things.


    Something great happend with Croatia NT this week. That is for sure Ema Strunjak(190cm), 18 years old MB who had amazing performance with NT this tournamte.
    For now She has 25/20 80% in attack. Outperforming Ivana Milos in attack. She is great slider with very good reach in spike. Huge potentional, I just hope that She will go to play outside Croatia to develop much more.
    Božena Butigan (191cm) is new MB in our NT, She is 17 years old better in blocking than in attacking but again HUGE potential. Problem with her that She is to skiny. I haven't seen any musles at her. If She wants to become world class players She needs to work much more in gym so her attack will become stronger. She can jump really high so I can tell that She is future. She already had amazing performance with U18 NT especially with blocking.


    I don't know what happend with Klara Peric and NT coahc Aksentijevic, He didn't invite her for World Grand Prix after She left NT before QT for WCH. Someone said that She had bad behavior, but Croatia NT is NOT USA, Italy or Turkey to have this luxury to expel players because of their behavior and We all now that WE DON'T HAVE ANY SETTER. Ana Grbac needs to say goodbye to NT but without Karla I don't see who can replace her.


    I'm happy that Karla Klaric will not be with NT at World Grand Prix and other young OHs will get opportunity. That is for sure Dinka Kulic(190cm). She is tall with good reach in spike and her reception is much better now after playing one season as OH and not OPP and She has amazing jump serve. So duo Mlinar - Kulic can be very good.


    Girls from USA colleges will finally play for Croatia NT. So I'm happy to see them how they progressed after leaving our weak league in Croatia.
    Mia Jerkov, Hana Cutura are girls who were at USA colleges before going to play pro volleyball...

  • After watching our young girls, how they played against Russia "B" roster now I can say that they are not that bad at all. Even B Russia team as individual players they are much OLDER and must STRONGER, but still we were leading against them and lost 1 set after they bring up in the game Goncharova and Kosheleva but they didn't showed that huge diffrents, we just made to many stupied errors but that is for me so normal. Our girls are to young and they don't have in their "legs" high level matches. Even after first set Kosheleva was starter because they couldn't beat us with their "B" roster and afterall we won 1 set. For this girls winning one set against this strong team is AMAZING.


    It is so ridiculous that we played so bad against GRE and Hun and we showed so good games against Russia.


    First of all as I Said before Ema Strunjak will become world class MB for sure same as Bozena Butigan, She just needs to become stronger, She needs to be more in gym. She blocked player like Kosheleva and Goncharova. She has high reach in block, I repeat my self huge potentional She even replaced Ivana Milos who is playing in Turkey.


    I was hating whole this tournamate Katarina Pavicic but I was surprised how great She was against Russia(First time to be starter). Not world class player but she is shorter and She was not afraid to hit against tall blocks. She is probably right now the best Croatian OH in defence. Lucija Mlinar has strong spike but she needs to bring more tehc. in it. And to become more stable in reception.


    Nikolina Božičević my God, How great she is in defence, how fast She is, She defend some spikes with just one hand, I was amazed by her. Watching her live is AMAZING, but her reception is just to weak. I don't why Aksentijevic doesn't try with Rene Sain at reception and Bozicevic in defence.


    Ana Grbac is just I don't what to say. She is guilty why We lost against Russia in 1.set So many wrong sets, so many low sets to player that They can't use. Watching right now replay on TV, and I remember when She was setting so bad and you Can't see how many wrong sets She is giving at TV but watching live you can see how HARD is for player to score when She sets so many bad sets. I just hope that Klara Peric will come back to NT. We can't play with Grbac anymore. And Curak is probably the worst setter that I ever seen.


    Samanta Fabris as always world class player. From spiking, to blocking and serving. We can be proud to have her.

  • It is AMAZING that you can still praise Croatian players after such a humiliating performance :lol: They couldn't win against even GRE and HUN with AMAZING Fabris and Barun :rolleyes: :aww: Nationalism makes people blind apparently

  • Lol, yea the Croatian NT was just embarassing in qualifiers and I personally find it really hard to praise any of the players after that weak performance. Sure, maybe there are a few promising talents you found and it will be good for Croatia to build a team with them. But isn't it a little early to be so sure about them becoming world class players? The funniest thing is probably that you seem almost peased with how things are going atm with Croatian NT.


    Btw: Croatia didn't play that amazing vs Russia's B-ish team. Not trying to discredit the work of Croatian girls and yes Kosheleva and Goncha played bits and parts of that match but imo it didn't look the Russians were giving 100% at all. I remember in the final set Croatia was 12-8 up and then only managed to get 3 more points losing 15-25 :down: Not even mentioned blunders vs Hungary and Greece. You really need a reality check! :aww:

  • Oh Serdar, how dare you doubt that all of these players (except Grbac of course who is the worst player of all time and of all that will ever come) are going to become WORLD CLASS PLAYERS? :rolll:


    :lol: :lol: Sorry for being off topic but I have to do this :lol:

  • I'm here more than 3 years and I'm still surpirsed when I see how "smart" some people are, but ok :)



    First of all I didn't say that I see potential to win Gold or any other medal in Tokyo or even to be at next Olympics I just said that I can finally see potential and good performance after DISASTER performance against GRE and HUN.


    Secondly Altinli You didn't ask your self that Russian could play much better when they were 100% relax because they didn't have any pressure on their back ? And why I'm telling that Ema Strunjak can become( CAN, not THAT SHE IS) because she showed great performance at this tournament and She is playing in weak Croatian league (I wouldn't be surprised that someone said that I "said" that Croatian league is new Seria A) LOL.
    I can't say that about some Turkish players because they are playing and working with World Class players and still they can't showe after so many years anything new in their performance. That is why I'm very sure that she has amazing potential, but everything is on her. Same as Bozena Butigan.


    serdar Barun and Fabris can't play in the same time because they are both OPP, you know that right or ? So even if We have players as Egonu, Boskovic, Gamova etc. in the same team they still can't help usbecause they are OPP. Escpailly not in our NT with so much young OHs. who can't cover them.

  • Well, the 1st I have to say that, Croatia is not big country like Russia, Brazil, Turkey or Germany or etc... if I wasnt wrong there are about over 5 million people but they had Osmokrivic which every volleyball fans know, they had Maja Poljak, Sanja Popovic, Fabris, Barun, Mia Jerkov, Topic and such strong players. It's really interesting if Brazil, Turkey, China, Usa, Germany, Russia had population about 5 million they would be such players like them :whistling: In russian channel when I watched volleyball game Serbia against Russia, Tatyana Gracheva said Serbia had population about 7 million but they had so strong players and now I have to say the same things to Croatia, Bulgaria. In England and France there are a lot of population but they hadnt such stronger players but Croatia still have them :thumbup:

  • Well, Porto Rico has a population stimed around 4,3 milions people and still is a rising volleyball country. It doesn't matter of how many people there are in a country (having more helps for sure): tradition, structure and organization are the keys IMHO.

  • I think population is very important, if we think Puerto Rico and Croatia have population about over 80 million. Can you imagine how many players will they give to volleyball. It's game of height. In Croatia every girls are not over 180cm. If you have population over 80 million, it means you can give plenty of players to volleyball ( of course I mean about Serbia and Croatia) and also you can choose the best of them for NT.

  • And I also think if Croatia have population over 5 million and of course all of them are not female, I guess count of the female may be over 2 million and I can surely say all of them are not tall and every tall girls cant be strong player, if we think all of them I must congratulate the country although have few population but they gave huge names to volleyball :heart:

  • That is great point and I agree with that.


    No wonder why only countries with a big population with the exception of Cuba ( 11 million) have won major tournaments, China ( 1.3 billion), USA (320 million) Brazil ( 207 million) Russia (144 million) Japan (127 million) and Italy ( 60 million).


    That`s why I wanted Serbia to win the Gold in Rio so bad. :aww:

    I think population is very important, if we think Puerto Rico and Croatia have population about over 80 million. Can you imagine how many players will they give to volleyball. It's game of height. In Croatia every girls are not over 180cm. If you have population over 80 million, it means you can give plenty of players to volleyball ( of course I mean about Serbia and Croatia) and also you can choose the best of them for NT.

  • crovolley you clearly said she WILL become a world class player not 'CAN' . Maybe you should try and read your own posts before you post here again ;) I personally didnt like the performance of Croatia even if there is a lot of talent in the NT. I like a lot of individual players of Croatia and its sad for me to see them do this HORRIBLE when there is so much individual talent in the teams and so much potential. It was just weird for me to see you being almost pleased, you should complain just like we in Turkey did after disasterous performance in OG quallies. Btw there is no need to talk about Turkish Nt as that is a whole other story and is off-topic in this thread which should be about Cro NT...


    And yea guys surely population can make a big difference, countries like USA, China, Russia etc. are if you have noticed good in almost all sports. But this is also no excuse for the smaller teams, yes it is a big factor but it surely is not the only factor. OG nr 1 and 3 were huge countries, but also remember Serbia and the Netherlands are very small countries but still managed to be one of the best NT's in the world.

  • Netherlands have population about over 17 million and Croatia have only over 5 million people, Turkey and Germany is a big country too, they have population over 80 million and I think it is not a big factor, it is main factor of luck.

  • Serbia have population about over 7 million almost 8 million and almost half of Bosnia are Serbian people. Remember two huge player from Bosnia ( Boskovic and Mihailovic). It's real fact population of Istanbul about over 15 million. Turkey is enough big country I think. Well, I am not fan of Croatia but remember we are talking about small country with few population.