Champions League 2008/2009

Quote from mateo

Skra Bełchatów - Dinamo MOSCOW

AZS Częstochowa - Copra Nord Meccanica PIACENZA

Itas Diatec Trentino - Portol Palma MALLORCA

Lube Banca Macerata - Fenerbahce ISTANBUL
ACH Volley BLED (SLO) vs. Zenit KAZAN (RUS)

Noliko MAASEIK (BEL) vs. Iskra ODINTSOVO (RUS)

Knack Randstad ROESELARE (BEL) vs. VfB FRIEDRICHSHAFEN (GER)

VITORIA SC (POR) vs. Iraklis THESSALONIKI (GRE)

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So, the teams I personally want to progress to 1/4(but maybe not all of them will :p) are:

Skra Bełchatów -
AZS Częstochowa - also because of Mlyakow as well
Itas Diatec Trentino

Lube Banca Macerata - don't like macherata, but i prefer them instead of Fenerbache
ACH Volley BLED
Iskra ODINTSOVO
Knack Randstad ROESELARE (BEL)
Iraklis THESSALONIKI (GRE)

The opponents of these teams have to lose.

Difficult opponent for Skra, but players from Bełchatów have what they wanted to have. They lost all games in straight sets, so mthe opponent is stronger. About AZS: I'm a little bit optimistic, although Copra Piacenza seems to be favorite.

AZS has no chance against Piacenza . SKra also has very tough opponent
all pairs (except SKra-Dynamo one) have clear favourite
Piacenza , ITas, MAcerata , Zenit, Iskra VFB,and Iraklis should advance without any problems

1/4 Finals

Winner of Lube Banca Marche Macerata - Fenerbahce Istanbul VS Winner of ACH Volley Bled - Zenit Kazan

Winner of Copra Nord Meccanica Piacenza - Domex Tytan AZS Częstochowa VS Winner of Portol Palma Mallorca - Itas Diatec Trentino

Winner of Dinamo Moscow - PGE Skra Bełchatów VS Winner of Noliko Maaseik - Iskra Odintsovo

Winner of Knack Randstad Roeselare - VfB Friedrichshafen VS Winner of VitoriaI SC - Iraklis Thessaloniki

I also think Copra Piacenza should have no problems eliminating AZS Czestochowa. Piacenza has difficulties winning 3-0, so I am sure Czestochowa might take one or two sets in Italy, but the job will be too tough in Poland...

Friedrichshafen should play really well in Belgium to make things easy at home! During the past few years they have been very convincing in the play-off phase at home. Against Knack should be the same even with a bad result in Roeselare.

The only tie I do not want to comment is namely Dinamo Moscow - Skra! Skra is unpredictable this year, this 1/8-final can go either way...

Some easy to predict winners in the 1/8-final round but the 1/4-finals after that will be serious! One prediction I wanna make - VfB Friedrichshafen looks like, for me, a certain participant in Prague unless Iraklis (or Roeselare, or Vitoria) proves me wrong! Iraklis is not a weak future opponent but VfB has more chances to reach Prague, in my opinion! If I am wrong, Marsia and Shadow will be happy

I want to watch Copra Piacenza - Itas Trentino in the 1/4-finals as well!

Let's see.... I really hope that Skra will beat Dinamo, because they are my favourite Polish team but it will be very hard I think. Copra will probably win against Czestochowa and Itas against Mallorca too. Macerata, Zenit and Iskra will also go on. About Knack and Friedrichshafen it is very hard to predict, but may be the second team will win the battle And the last match Iraklis will succeed vs. Vitoria

nice draw for us in the 1/8 finals but terrible for the 1/4 finals!!
as said by YavorD we have some problems to win 3-0, so we may loose 1 set(not more) at home and maybe other 1-2 in Poland, but i think we'll win both matches without so many problems..
problems which we'll find the next round....Trento....i hoped to avoid this derby, but the decision is done so...here we go...
it will be a great challenge, but i think we'll loose, Trento played versus 3 rdiculous teams in the pool, and also Mallorca in the 1/8 finals is an easy opponent, so they will be less tired than us.
let's see...

Quote from Copra Piacenza

nice draw for us in the 1/8 finals but terrible for the 1/4 finals!!
as said by YavorD we have some problems to win 3-0, so we may loose 1 set(not more) at home and maybe other 1-2 in Poland, but i think we'll win both matches without so many problems..
problems which we'll find the next round....Trento....i hoped to avoid this derby, but the decision is done so...here we go...
it will be a great challenge, but i think we'll loose, Trento played versus 3 rdiculous teams in the pool, and also Mallorca in the 1/8 finals is an easy opponent, so they will be less tired than us.
let's see...

I really don't think that ACH volley Bled from Slovenia is a ridiculous team....

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I really don't think that ACH volley Bled from Slovenia is a ridiculous team....

No one said anything against Ach Volley Bled Probably you mean AZS Czestochowa.. None of these teams is ridiculous, you are right! There are no weak teams in this round of the competition! Or maybe we will see one or two teams a little weaker than their opponents. I think this is quite normal due to the different levels of the national leagues and the allowed number of foreign players in the teams participating in the 1/8-finals!

Just saw Noliko Maaseik - Iskra Odintsovo
result: Noliko 1 - Iskra 3
Maaseik played a good match, except for the third set

Dynamo Moskwa - Skra Bełchatów 3-2 (25:21, 22:25, 25:23, 28:30, 15:13)

i did not expect that coming. Polish teams have never played good in Russia so 2 sets won there is always well welcome it's very good result before rematch i;m bit more optimistic Wlazly is playing the worst season he's just awful i don;t know how many times he was blocked today 10? 15? i have to chacked statistic with him playing on 70% of what he can do it would be 3-0 for Skra

Yes, Polish teams used to play bad against Russian teams in Russia and these two won sets are very precious. The game... well it wasn,t the highest level I think. I wouldnt say Skra is a favorite in the second game, because this team is unstabile, but I am also optimistic, Everything may happen, but i hope it will be Skra, which is going to qualify.

great Skra!!! i really hope they can kick Dynamo's ass in the return match and qualify for the quartefinals!!

Copra Piacenza- AZS Częstochowa 2-3 (23:25, 23:25, 25:23, 25:16, 14:16) aaaaaaaaaaa

damn guys i love u sooo much you make me proud of you i wont complain that it could be 3-0 i'm soo happy. thi match cause me several heart attack and i tie break-a nightmare happily with good ending .
NOwakowski my babe his awsome love him so much Marshall was our 7th player today

Great volleyball tonight! All three games were fantastic to watch! In fact, I really switched the three laola1.tv browsers in order to watch all three games Congrats to AZS for the deserved win though the problems for Piacenza were pretty obvious... I still can't say AZS will qualify because even with the current problems, Copra are full of surprises. Definitely it will be a damn interesting return game! I just think the chances are still 50-50...

Impressive performance from ACH Volley! The two sets, I believe, was the maximum they could have taken from this game. Zenit just destroyed them in the last two sets...

Iraklis was very nice to watch as well! I should say they were a bit lucky at the end of the second set, which if Vitoria had won, it would not have been an easy game any longer, but such things happen... I was very surprised by the appearance of Vitoria in this year's tournament but they proved their place there with every single game so far! What they missed tonight, in my opinion, was simply a little bit of experience, and maybe some luck to close that second set...Otherwise, it was a pleasure for me to watch them and I hope to see them again in the IECL next year! Gosh, I can't wait to see Iraklis - Friedrichshafen in the next round

It is amazing, what AZS did yesterday They played great (Bartman, Milyakov) and beat strong opponent from Italy away. AZS' performance in the CHL is a very nice surprise, because: 1) who had counted on them really before the competition started?, 2) this team plays better in Champions League than in PlusLiga Great succes, big congratualtions. I hope they will able to repeat such a game next week in the second leg. I like AZS more than Skra in CHL this season - Skra has bigger potential, but that is AZS, which is a REAL team now, I think. Skra is more like a group of stars...Plays worse, than it can, while Częstochowa plays better, than many people expected.
And one more thing: Paweł Zatorski may be first libero of Polish NT team in the next years. Mark my words - it is a great talent on this position. I'm glad with that, cause Poland didn't seem to have class liberos, except Ignaczak and Gacek. And Zatorski is very young.

yesterday we lived the worst page of Piacenza's volley history.

no excuses, Zlatanov didn't play ok, Bravo didn't play ok, Marshall plays with several problems ok....but we can't loose against Czestochowa(with all the respect i can have...)

we beated Dynamo Moscow, Panathinaikos, Cuneo, Treviso, Kazan in our past...and now we loose against the 7th team of Poland. if we would have lost against Skra ok, it could have been possible, but versus Azs i can't accept it.

no heart, no passion, no will to fight...nothing i saw yesterday!

The polish of course play very good so congrats to them, but if only we would have played at 50% of our possibilities we would have won. yesterday we played maybe at 15%....maybe....

Marshall horrible, the worst Bjelica ever seen, Meoni choosed every time the wrong solution in attack, Pampel sometimes good sometimes embarassing.... no words. just no words.

we deserve to go out. i can't say nothing. if you loose these matches you deserve to go out. dot.

sorry Konrad and Mateo if i seem angry but try to understand me...

Quote from Copra Piacenza

sorry Konrad and Mateo if i seem angry but try to understand me...

No problem. I would agree with you with many aspects you have mentioned above.

Quote from Copra Piacenza

we deserve to go out. i can't say nothing. if you loose these matches you deserve to go out. dot.

sorry Konrad and Mateo if i seem angry but try to understand me...

i can understand u i would be even more pissed if i were u. we POles have been in that kind of situation bilions of times so yeah i know what are u feeling now
but i still think Piacenza will go through AZS is very weird team. they can play unbelievable good but next day they can be completly rubish they will fight for sure but will it be enough? we will see . 1 think i'm sure . it will be a hell for PIacenza. if the chance to go through exist AZS fans will make an exordinary noise in the hall and with support like that you just can't play bad . AZS has very specific fans and most of the time they are "7th player" and it;s not easy to play 7 on 6