Croatia 2017 NT

  • Ok what is your point? I didnt say Croatia should be OG silver medalists. I only said they are not doing well also not for their own standards which is a fact ... Lost against some very weak teams so clearly something is going bad.


    And I didnt deny big countries have an advantage but I said its not the ONLY factor otherwise Netherlands and Serbia also would be bad

  • 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.


    I also don't get your point :what: Second most populous country India's population is 1.3 billion. 4th Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh are all non existing in volleyball world although they are in top 10 most populated countries. There is no correlation with total population. If there is any correlation, it is about the popularity of the sports in that country which leads increased number of people playing the sport and making a bigger player pool to choose. Also the presence of sport culture and physical characteristics of that nation are the decisive parts. But not overall population!


    People from Balkans are quite tall and strong body characteristics in general, which makes them advantageous over teams like Thailand or Vietnam, which are quite short in general. Also Balkans countries have sport history and culture which allow them to grow professional sportsmen from young age.


    Moreover, popularity of the sports also make difference, CHN is successful at volleyball because it is one of the most popular sport (females) however they are not good at other sport such as Football although their population is more than a billion.

  • Population are important country like Croatia, Serbia. Can you imagine if they have population about over 80 million and how many Osmokrovic, Boskovic will they give to volleyball. Population is much more important for choosing the best of them. If they had a lot of population it means they will give plent of players to volleyball and other sports, which they can choose the best quality of them. I think they are really lucky they still have volleyball stars like Osmokrovic, Poljak, Jerkov, Popvic, Alajberg, Fabris, Barun ;)

  • I get your point.


    But what we are saying is this. If Brazil could only choose players that were born in Sao Paulo ( 12 million people) or China only player from Beijiin ( 12 million people) and the USA only players from New York ( 12 million people). Do you think they would be strong as they are?? they could but they would have a very limited amount of players.


    If Serbia and Croatia had over 200 millions, we are not saying they would be better, but at least they would have much much much girls to choose from.



    I also don't get your point :what: Second most populous country India's population is 1.3 billion. 4th Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh are all non existing in volleyball world although they are in top 10 most populated countries. There is no correlation with total population. If there is any correlation, it is about the popularity of the sports in that country which leads increased number of people playing the sport and making a bigger player pool to choose. Also the presence of sport culture and physical characteristics of that nation are the decisive parts. But not overall population!


    People from Balkans are quite tall and strong body characteristics in general, which makes them advantageous over teams like Thailand or Vietnam, which are quite short in general. Also Balkans countries have sport history and culture which allow them to grow professional sportsmen from young age.


    Moreover, popularity of the sports also make difference, CHN is successful at volleyball because it is one of the most popular sport (females) however they are not good at other sport such as Football although their population is more than a billion.

  • I really mean for example Brazil have population over 200 million, right and almost over 100 million of them are female, all of them are not tall, all of them dont choose volleyball as sport, every tall girls from brazil we cant say they are very strong players and girls choose volleyball and their count is over Croatian people ( for example 8-9 million female) and they choose the best quality. And I mean if Croatia has count of female over 2 million and all of them dont choose sport and excatly volleyball, maybe some tall girls choose model as their job, some tall girls choose basketball and etc.. if we think all of these things I think they are enough lucky they still have strong players although they are not a big country. And also Croatia is not a country their federation take care volleyball so much.

  • I get your point.


    But what we are saying is this. If Brazil could only choose players that were born in Sao Paulo ( 12 million people) or China only player from Beijiin ( 12 million people) and the USA only players from New York ( 12 million people). Do you think they would be strong as they are?? they could but they would have a very limited amount of players.


    If Serbia and Croatia had over 200 millions, we are not saying they would be better, but at least they would have much much much girls to choose from.


    But Croatia and Serbia are countries, I can surely say if they had population over 200 million, maybe they give plenty of players to sports it's fact. They like sports and their sport is still enough good on my mind. For example today 100'000 girls choose volleyball as their sport and if they had population over 200million maybe 20-30 million will choose volleyball as their sport. They are not like Thailand and Philippines ( it's funny to compare European tall, athletic, country with asian countries).

  • I am really sorry for that. Croatia have population about 4 million :whistle: and Serbia about 7 million :white: I can say it ten times yes yes population are very important, if population of country is not important then who will play volleyball :rolll: p

  • Ok LLOYD by your logic India will be one one of the best in the world with 1 billion then like serdar said :wavy: Iceland has a very small population yet they were really good in football lately... Better then some huge countries

  • I dont talk about asian countries it's funny to compare European countries with a country like India who are not interested in sports, their people are living for being alive. Crotia is a country their people always are interested in sports.

  • Of course that's not what he's saying. :rolleyes: And he's completely right.


    The population size and the popularity of the sport are both important factors. The huge population of India is meaningless if no one plays volleyball there. But even a highly developed sports culture will only take you so far if you don't have enough people to back it up. The entire female population of San Marino can take up volleyball and be very serious about it, and yet it wouldn't make for a top level team because the talent pool would be too small.
    Once a sport becomes global, which volleyball is, it's a numbers game in many ways. The sheer number of girls practising volleyball in China, Russia, Brazil, USA virtually guarantees that they'll always have enough decent players to count on to keep themselves at the top or near it. For the likes of Croatia and Serbia it's not the case and they're much more heavily dependant on their standout talents, and they don't come around in every single generation.

  • Of course that's not what he's saying. :rolleyes: And he's completely right.


    The population size and the popularity of the sport are both important factors. The huge population of India is meaningless if no one plays volleyball there. But even a highly developed sports culture will only take you so far if you don't have enough people to back it up. The entire female population of San Marino can take up volleyball and be very serious about it, and yet it wouldn't make for a top level team because the talent pool would be too small.
    Once a sport becomes global, which volleyball is, it's a numbers game in many ways. The sheer number of girls practising volleyball in China, Russia, Brazil, USA virtually guarantees that they'll always have enough decent players to count on to keep themselves at the top or near it. For the likes of Croatia and Serbia it's not the case and they're much more heavily dependant on their standout talents, and they don't come around in every single generation.


    Finally, I'm happy one people understands what I really meant :thumbup:

  • And yet still nobody gets what we're actually saying...This is not even what this conversation was about. I know Croatia and especially Serbia has a very big volleyball/sports culture and this does take them far of course because its the most important thing you need. As you said in some asian countries like India there is no interest in volleyball at all which means they are bad even with 1 billion people. So this is the most important thing as countries like Serbia who still isnt big at all are strong. All we said Croatia is doing really bad despite the many talents and potential they still have, compared to there usual level. Imo something needs to change and they shouldn't comtinue like this or try to focus on the youngsters or something for a new Gen. They lost against quite weak teams considered to normal Croatia.


    But then LLOYD randomly talked about populations. Lol yes you are right that does matter but it doesn't mean thats the only problem in Croatian NT at all.


    Maybe when some missing players like Jerkov comes and the coach leaves they can improve. Blaming everything on population is unecessary as they already proved earlier and as invididuals that they are capapble of high level volleyball.


    And for the last time yes population does matter we all know it but it clearly is not the core problem atm and it wasn't even what we were talking about :aww:

  • Meaningless discussion IMO :whistle: I'm not into women volley but I'll repeat Croatian national team isn't group of THE BEST players but the group which is created on some personal relations and other non volleyball stuff. crovolley is overestimating things like usual and dont see what is visible to everyone. Population is important thing but even we have 20 mil. people situation would be the same.


    Regarding NT from the next season women team wont have priority over male team so it's going to be interesting to see what will happen :whistle:

  • Altinli, I didnt answer to you or anyone. I just wrote when I was just thinking because when I watched volleyball Tatyana Gracheva also said some thing like this about Bulgarian, Serbian NT. She also compared Russia with them and thought maybe average height of these countries are taller than Russia. And that's why I just wrote my thought at the moment. Well, I'm not fan of Croatian NT, also I didnt write it for repling anyone. It was my thought at the moment. Of course, if we look at population we had to win against Serbia in Olimpic Game :whistle: but I meant it's really hard to develop volleyball and etc country like Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia and etc. yes today Serbian girls are strong but when they will retire who can say their young girls will be able to replace them. When I wrote my opinion and it wasnt answer to anyone, it was what I really thought at the same moment

  • Croatian volleyball federation has always been one huge mess. Even in their glory days of the 90s no one there had the sport's best interests at heart, it was all about struggle for money and power. There were tons of scandals that were barely kept under the surface, Jelić and Leto (Osmokrović) as their two best players were on very bad terms, Jelić basically threatened to boycott the NT if her father wasn't the coach, their Russian players didn't want to play after a while but had to because they were threatened with suspension and so on and on and on. In the end Jelić quit volleyball, Osmokrović got fed up with the NT and everyone stopped paying any attention to volleyball there.


    Maja Poljak recently talked in an interview how difficult it was for her generation when they took over because they had no one to help them out and they lost a lot of matches out of their inexperience, which then had a huge impact on their confidence and mentality, so they never managed to make anything big even though they had the talent to do it.

  • As Joanna said our Federation is a total mess for years and years. At some point there were constant scandals, corruption affairs and other criminal stuff. Of course that had impact on volleyball in general.


    A lot of girls refused to play in NT under Aksentijević guidance explaining they are injured, tired while some of them aren't "good enough" due non volleyball reasons. As I said I'm not into women volley but sometimes you can't avoid such informations.


    Tournament in Osijek was total disaster, I would say humiliating and surely wont be better in WGP :gone: