Grand Champions Cup 2009 - Japan


  • Italy is 3 times world champions - consecutively, has 8 world leagues, several european titles. Second after Brazil in my ranking with slight difference.


    :drink: :drink:


    ok maybe Brasil is the best team thanks to 2 olympic gold medals...
    but Naples, u really can't say that Italy is behind to Usa and Urss too :)
    we really won everything in the 90's a part from the olympic games, both Usa and Urss didn't win so much in their golden period...
    and anyway, u forget Japan of the 60's....which is the third best team in history IMO ;)

    2001: Italian champions beach volley 4x4
    2002: Italian League Serie A2 - Italian Cup Serie A2
    2004: Italian league's runner up - Cev Cup's runner up
    2006: Top Teams Cup - Italian Cup's runner up
    2007: Italian league's runner up - Cev Cup's runner up
    2008: Champions league's runner up - Italian league's runner up
    2009: Italian League
    2009: Italian Supercup
    2010: Cev Cup's runner up
    2013: Challenge Cup
    <<We're always with you, and we will never leave you alone!>>

  • Poland-Egypt 3:0, so we have taken 4th place . As I said before, for this team, with these players - it is quite good result. Too bad, we didn't manage to beat Japan...

    The most important 3:
    POLAND-SZCZECIN-VOLLEYBALL


    5th place - Prediction Game - World League 2011 :D

    Edited once, last by Konrad ().

  • Congratulations, Brazil. 3:0 victory over Japan and first place in the tournament :)

    The most important 3:
    POLAND-SZCZECIN-VOLLEYBALL


    5th place - Prediction Game - World League 2011 :D

  • @ superbobo: thank you, and I agree 100%, specially with what you say about the USA team, which is an excellent team, and one I really admire.


    @ Black is beautiful: I'm amazed! You said exactly what I was trying to say (down to the quotes, really), but you said it in much fewer words and much more eloquently lol. Your last sentence directed at me sums it up pretty nicely. Thank you.


    raylight: well, I do not wish to argue with you, so I'm just gonna say that the way you did your wording on the beginning of this thread didn't give the impression that you meant what you said at the end of the thread. Just to illustrate, at the beginning of page 4 you say Brazil is not a strong team. You then went on to say, after challenged, that you meant it's not unbeatable, but "not strong" is very different from "not unbeatable", wouldn't you say? It's very much the opposite, in my eyes. I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm just trying to explain to you why someone would take what you said in the wrong way.


    Anyways, I sincerely apologize if I was wrong, or didn't capture what you meant. Hope we can bury this now.


    @ Konrad: Thank you! :)

  • Brazil played just brilliantly today, I started to doubt my on statement about their vincibility - with this amazing performance in setting, digging and receiving, it will take a all-star team to beat them at the final of the league or other important tournament.


    "Konrad, Brazil is also not very strong even with Visotto the team is not like before".
    Now I understand why is the reaction. I've wrote something I didn't mean - should have written "Brazil is not as strong as before even with Visotto" :D


    About Simon Aties Roberlandy - this player is incredibly intelligent - he plays with his head. Deadly combination with his power. Poland awaits hard times in the next WL even if they play with full squad - Leon will be couple of cm taller, with 10 cm higher spike (form 350 to 360), the serve will be even better. He is just starting to play high quality volleyball, his potential is incredible - he can have the jump of Marshall and better serve than Matey, Berezhko and Clayton altogether :D


    I bet that the managers of Russian and Italian clubs lost their sleep, watching these two guys, desperate in their desire to have them. Almost romantic :whistle:

  • Congratulations to Brazilians, next year expect your black cat Bulgaria, to make harder life for you! I can't wait till 11th June.
    anony
    These are our opinions in my country - all people have some child mentality. And that's why we say - "Every wonder has only 3 days". Everybody forgot how hard it was in the beginning with Prandi - lose from Cuba, from Japan that everybody thought to be one of the useless teams in the tournaments.

  • There is nothing bad in child mentality, pure and innocent. The adults are the problem :whistle:

  • Congratulation Brazil!!!! :thumbsup:


    You are the Champins, and my opinion is still the same since few years- there is Brazil 1st in the world, long, long, nothing, and than the rest of the world. You are my favourite NT (of cource exept Polish NT :win: ) mostly because you are always so faightfull and concentrated on yor game in spite you reached everything.


    I just keep sorry that I can not watch genious of Ricardo and his brilliant setting.


    Regarding Polish NT- I still belive that one day we will be champins of the world with starting six (Zagumny, Wlazly, Kurek, Winiarski, Plinski, Możdżonek and Gacek)- Good luck guys in next tournaments.

  • Did anyone see Kurek hit his first spike against (I think) Iran?!! It was easily within the 3 meter line and almost hit the roof as far as I could see! That is starting to become his trade mark almost. Must be so demotivating for an opponent and such a heigh for hmself!


    Also thought Giba played well still, guess he's not THAT old yet.


    I really like Egypts setter. I pretty sure he's their best attacker! His jump serve is beyond anythign I have ever seen. Or well perhaps it's equaled by Grandvorka's serve from back in 2000. He has so much power and makes so little mistakes.

  • Quote

    I really like Egypts setter. I pretty sure he's their best attacker! His jump serve is beyond anythign I have ever seen. Or well perhaps it's equaled by Grandvorka's serve from back in 2000. He has so much power and makes so little mistakes.


    I kinda agree with the part that he is the best attacker :D Yes, he is a very good setter indeed, he has a style of setting similar to Lloy Ball with both hands straight in the air taking the ball very high. Very few setters have such a technique! It's true also that he serves really nice and loves to attack from time to time when given the chance :)




    I also want to congratulate Brazil for the title even though it was very easy for me to predict it :) They were the best team, but I hope Cuba will be motivated by the silver medals they took in a major event after so many years, and will develop even further! I am really eager to watch them next summer during the WCH!




    No one so far mentioned anything about the individual awards of the WGCC. I am very happy that only very young players took the awards (Sergio is an exception, he is simply fantastic, there is no one else to take the best libero award, for me he is the dream libero :) ). A bit surprisingly for me, Kunihiro Shimizu became the top scorer (I expected Vissotto), but he has improved a lot over the last 2 years since he appeared in the NT. Fukuzawa taking the best attacker award is also a bit surprising, but he had an amazing tournament. No Giba this time, there was the enormous Roberlandy Simon to take 3 individual awards!!! I don't remember a player doing so :) Simon is simply unstoppable, by far the best leader this young Cuban squad can have! What he did against Japan on Sunday was amazing, I think he made 2 mistakes for the whole game because of bad sets :)

  • Yeah Simon is amazing! Cool to see that we have a new monster middle attacker. I really like the combination where he jumps away from the spot where he takes off from. Quite often that leaves the block somewhere in the middle while he can drill it into the ground a few feet next to the block. Dude is also just one big guy!

  • HeelMooi,


    what do you expect of the WL group with Bulgaria, Brazil and Netherlands if all players are in good shape? any predictions,bets, thoughts? I am worried, because your team has great potential...

  • Well they have potential and I think a bunch of them playing in good leagues will learn a lot. Mainly our young setter needs more experience, which I hope he is now acquiring in the Belgian league. We kind of lack a real good opposite. Van Dijk is out with an injury and he's not world class anyway (I think he has some technical deficiencies). Klapwijk who plays in Belgium now as well is still really young. Of course the rest of the players should be at or at least approaching good international level. Horstink, Bontje and Kooistra are internationally recognized as good players now I think. Rauwerdink is getting there and perhaps we can count Trommel in that category as well.


    However, I don't think that next season we'll be able to compete with either Brazil or Bulgaria. Both teams still have a ton more experience. Perhaps Holland's middle attackers could be said to be better than those of Bulgaria, but all the other positions you still have us beat. Matej is better than Horstink and Alexiev is better than Rauwerdink. And of course you guys have Boyan AND Nikolov, so the diagonal position is just way better filled in. Oh and even Tsetsanov (spelling), but I mean Trentino's opposite is also becoming increasingly good!


    Brazil is still two or three levels better obviously. Being the under-dog, I think Holland will be able to play some really good matches though and probably even win one or two.


    Thanx for asking my opinion! What do you think yourself?

  • Bulgaria always have good opposites. Now we have Nikolov, Tsvetan Sokolov, Boyan Yordanov, Danail Milushev, Nikolai Uchikov (207 cm, 87 kg, extremely powerfull, he is now in A2), But I have a lot of respect for Robert Horstnik - he has 60% attack efficiency now in A1 ! Judging by our two games, when you showed very good mentality I think that even with perfect tactic (we have the best block in Europe, proven in the ECH) every match with Netherlands will be extremely tough. I think that we can get 7 pts of 12 in these 4 games, but I doubt to get much more (3 wins against Netherlands will be surprise for me honeslty).


    Against Brazil - our first games are with Brazil and we will prepare in Cuba two weeks before them, playing friendly matches with monsters like Leon and Simon, so we will start on high level. Brazil probably won't be in perfect shape, so it is totally possible to beat them twice and to get 5 or 6 pts from the first two games. If we take 12 pts from Korea, the games with Brazil in Varna won't be important, but if not - everything will be on the edge for best second team in the League. If we beat Brazil there, they will want revenge here, so I doubt to beat them 3 from 4 times (like we did against Yugoslavia in 2003, Italy in 2005 and USA in 2008 ). .

  • Bulgaria always have good opposites. Now we have Nikolov, Tsvetan Sokolov, Boyan Yordanov, Danail Milushev, Nikolai Uchikov (207 cm, 87 kg, extremely powerfull, he is now in A2), But I have a lot of respect for Robert Horstnik - he has 60% attack efficiency now in A1 ! Judging by our two games, when you showed very good mentality I think that even with perfect tactic (we have the best block in Europe, proven in the ECH) every match with Netherlands will be extremely tough. I think that we can get 7 pts of 12 in these 4 games, but I doubt to get much more (3 wins against Netherlands will be surprise for me honeslty).


    Against Brazil - our first games are with Brazil and we will prepare in Cuba two weeks before them, playing friendly matches with monsters like Leon and Simon, so we will start on high level. Brazil probably won't be in perfect shape, so it is totally possible to beat them twice and to get 5 or 6 pts from the first two games. If we take 12 pts from Korea, the games with Brazil in Varna won't be important, but if not - everything will be on the edge for best second team in the League. If we beat Brazil there, they will want revenge here, so I doubt to beat them 3 from 4 times (like we did against Yugoslavia in 2003, Italy in 2005 and USA in 2008 ). .


    I think tahr Bulgaria should be danger for lost 4 games against Brazil! :lol:

    [img=http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9631/braitajq5.th.jpg]


    "FIRE IN THE EYES" - THIS IS BRAZIL" :D

  • I heard Brazil was planing on losing all their matches intentionally, so the other teams will underestimate them during the final of the world League. Is this true? I think someone should explain them that if they lose all their matches, they won't go to the final. But that's just my opinion, I'm sure Brazil knows better than me.

  • I think that Giba is having nightmares with Matey Kazyiski flying


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybk0pp-OWHA :cheesy:

  • :drink:

  • I think that Giba is having nightmares with Matey Kazyiski flying


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybk0pp-OWHA :cheesy:


    Who was the champions in 2006 WL? HEHEHEHEHEHE :lol:


    What the NT of Bulgaria won in HISTORY?? OG? WL? WC? :whistle:

    [img=http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9631/braitajq5.th.jpg]


    "FIRE IN THE EYES" - THIS IS BRAZIL" :D

  • I heard Brazil was planing on losing all their matches intentionally, so the other teams will underestimate them during the final of the world League. Is this true? I think someone should explain them that if they lose all their matches, they won't go to the final. But that's just my opinion, I'm sure Brazil knows better than me.

    Hahaha where have you heard that? That's ludicrous! Apart from that which you already pointed out (that we wouldn't get on the finals this way), can you imagine Bernardo coming up with such a plan in which he'd have to lose that much? He'd be ripping someone's brain out before the season is over. Nah, if we lose, be assured that it's not intentional.


    raylight: if Giba dreams of M. Kazyiski, he's not the only one. :D