2015 World Cup - Japan - 9/8

Lanza is a good player but unfortunately always decisive in the negative way on crucial points

Absolutely terrible setting performance from Italy. Both setters are just terrible.
Zaytsev

Zaytsev with 64% efficiency, Juantorena with 63% despite terrible setting.
If Osmany can receive just average , Italy can beat anyone but that'a a big if
Now Iran do what we all hope, beat USA

Complete meltdown by Italy in the final set compared to the previous two, but we still managed to win the match with a lot of help from Iran.

I have no idea what Italy would without Ivan Zaytsev. Maybe Argentina level.

Iran is unrecognizable compared to a couple of years ago, monster players became completely irrelevant. They will have a lot of trouble in qualifying for the olympics if something doesn't change fast.

Zaytsev 27
Juantorena 20
Lanza 7

Piano 2, Buti 1, Anzani 1

How weak their MBs are
Are they best MBs in Italy ?

Quote from Ryu Takamiya

Zaytsev 27
Juantorena 20
Lanza 7

Piano 2, Buti 1, Anzani 1

How weak their MBs are
Are they best MBs in Italy ?

We don't have MBs in Italy No idea why our coach is wasting so much time with Buti...he's downright terrible. At least Piano is tall and cute (these are his only qualities), Anzani maybe can block once a set...

The same story as the match vs Russia
We are playing well everything is good but as we reach the 18th point we start to lose points one by one
We actually lost to Zaystev and Musersky
Our weak point is that we don't have a OPP point collector robot like Italy's Zaystev, Russia's Musersky or Poland's Kurek.

Our blocks were good today.Our players did 12blocks but in we won 30 of our spikes which Italy won 53
Zaystev won 25 points on spikes and Juantorena won 19 but our best spiker was our MB Mousavi with 7points won on spike
EBADIPOUR WTH 18attempts on spike and 5points?! even our OPP 6points on spikes

However I should congrats Italy

Btw Italy's Juantorena had a tatoo in Farsi on his arm

what a terrible performance from Iran, players like marouf setting like a amateur player . players has gone their fighting spirit and Kovac made the worst coaching performance in WC specially in the 3rd Set. if no change in Coaching Staff, with this performance, I bet we dont qualify to the olympics even through the world qualifier competition in next year . i think we lose to USA tomorrow easily

I repeat myself but I think that Kovac is a secondary problem: the biggest issue in team Iran, is team Iran.

Players don't respect Kovac. They don't listen to his (mediocre) advice and have an attitude of superiority and nonchalance. This is unacceptable. Maybe getting a new coach capable of earning the lost respect is an option, but the players have to learn some basic humility and understand that their behavior would not be tolerated in any other national team.

For Iran , they don't know how to block an OPP player. Their 12 blocks were mainly because of Giannelli's inaccurate setting.
For Italy yes Giannelli is young, very promising but right now he isn't doing anything better than Travica.
And I also think Italy can't survive with this kind of reception against Russia and Poland. Bernardi was doing excellent job to hide Juantorena in reception even with a libero like Nuri,Blengini is doing nothing. In time-outs ,Zaytsev acts like he is listening ,Osmany even doesn't care to act.
This is from Zaytsev about Blengini;

Quote

“Not bad, for sure. He is a young coach and he is more like a player at the bench. He speaks a lot of with us and we have a pretty good confidence between each other”

Maybe he is kind of captain for them ,but not the coach.

And Iran please make your presence known by everyone and beat USA.

I think Buti is way hotter that Piano.

Quote from scarpetta

For Italy yes Giannelli is young, very promising but right now he isn't doing anything better than Travica.

Not being the team cancer known as Travica is already a huge improvement. Let's not forget that Baranowicz was kicked out of the team twice a few months before the Olympics, 2011 and 2015, simply because Travica was feeling challenged by his presence (Berruto literally said that).

I agree on the other things you said, but let's not forget that this is basically Giannelli's second major tournament with Italy NT. Had he played for some months with the other players rather than warming up the bench, we would be talking about a whole different kind of player.

He has some blackouts in important phases of the match, but this seems to be the case with the whole team. Hopefully we won't throw away the match against Russia because of something like this.

And by the way Anzani is way better looking than Piano and Buti

Just to have an idea of the situation on team Iran, here's the press conference after today's defeat:

Iran coach Slobodan Kovac: "We did not play good volleyball. We did not follow our game plan tonight. We did not get enough attacks. We attacked better against Argentina. It was different today against Italy. I'm not satisfied. I'm not sure what happened today."

Iran captain Mir Saeid Marouflakrani: "It was a good match. We played good volleyball. We touched many balls on our block. We had a problem with our counterattack. In the third set we played better, but unfortunately we lost the mtach. We did serve good today."

Cognitive dissonance?

Quote from vabo

We don't have MBs in Italy No idea why our coach is wasting so much time with Buti...he's downright terrible. At least Piano is tall and cute (these are his only qualities), Anzani maybe can block once a set...

Oh...it's pity that there are no good MBs in Italy.
This Italian MBs reminds me of 2012 Russian W MBs.

Buti-Borodakova : captain and cheerleader
Piano-Merkurova : very tall but perfomance isn't convincing.
Anzani-Perepelkina : relatively good blocker

I agree with Vabo
It looks Iranian players don't give a shit to Kovac and this is awful.
On timeouts somebody are walking around , some are dreaming , some players are talking together 2 by 2 , some players are getting some advices from Marouf and Kovac is just talking for himself and his assistance like this " " and drawing somethings on his whiteboard.

About a year ago when Kovac first came to Iran and during the World League 2014 players had been showing some respects to him even Marouf said that "We have a great coach" but it seems now they don't like Kovac as much as they had before

I myself don't like Kovac that much and I don't think he is a awesome coach but he deserve some respects bcz he is trying to do his best for us for my country and he deserve some respects.
He has a weak on working on our players' mental ability which Velasco was perfect at.Iranians are so emotional and need a coach like Velasco.Look at when we are playing at home in Tehran where fans motivate our players' emotions and they turn into their bests as those two matches against USA where we defeated USA in 3straight sets in both matches.

Quote from Ryu Takamiya

Oh...it's pity that there are no good MBs in Italy.
This Italian MBs reminds me of 2012 Russian W MBs.

Buti-Borodakova : captain and cheerleader
Piano-Merkurova : very tall but perfomance isn't convincing.
Anzani-Perepelkina : relatively good blocker

I couldn't have made a better comparison! It is really a pity as the rest of the team is working better, but without at least one strong MB (I'm referring to Birarelli) I'm afraid Italy won't make it.. Another down side is our bench: beside Sottile or Anzani I don't see anyone coming in and making the difference if one of the starters isn't playing good!

Quote from vabo

Poland is throwing away too many sets in this tournament

It could be worse, they could be winning in 5 sets.

If Russia wins in 3 today, both Russia and Italy will be ahead of Poland on sets ratio. If they lose one match, they'll fall behind Russia and Italy on sets ratio tie breaker.

Giannelli is way better than Travica, just see how he sets back in area 1 and compare with Travica. By the way I think that Baranowicz and Falaschi at the moment are way better (not block or serve of course, but they do less mistakes).

p.s. Anzani was among the best MBs of 2014/2015 league (better than Podrascanin, for example), maybe you don't remember, so I suggest all of you to control the stats on legavolley.it.
Actually I don't know why he's on the bench, he's the best MB we have in this roster, better than Piano and Buti

Definitely Anzani should be starter, he is a good attacker and blocker, but is far way of the best in the positions

Buti played really well for Perugia 2 seasons ago, but right now is in a terrible shape and Piano can just block, he works in attack only if there is a good setter with, allowing him to spike without block, like happen in Modena.

Even Beretta used to do better than this


Talking about MBs, Vlasov is totally intimidated, for me who has followed him throughout all season is weird to see him so shy in terms of attack, but the good point is that he stopped to do the countless mistakes in service line like he used to do in Fakel.

Nowakowski was better than Bieniek today. And he scored 14 points. Just WOW. By the way Bieniek is not showing his best. Let's hope he's just keeping this for USA or Italy
They could give MVP award to Buszek. I mean Kurek already has a few. And Buszek deserved so for being more awesome than I have ever expected from him.

I have just enough of losing to USA. I really believe we can beat them this time.

I see Spirik felt an uncontrollable need to do sth "amazing" in his way. Well, he didn't play much so he took the opportunity to roar like a Siberian bear in match with Australia.

And Piano maybe is cute. Cute as a baby. Not the type you faint with exitement only looking at. But the one you feel a need to give a pacifier and bib. Buti and Anzani are not hot. Mastro was hot. Buti is just ok and Simo Anzani looks amicably.

I know Buti very well. Usually he needs more time than others to find his best shape. His first season with Perugia was bad in Regular season and amazing during the play-off. Last season he started slowly again, but never reached his best shape. I'd rather keeping Barone over him, but we took him.

Cester, Anzani, Barone, Alletti and Mengozzi were the best MBs. All of them have qualities and weaknesses. Piano underperformed so far. Beside Birarelli, who's far from a top MB at international level, there's no one.

Mazzone could be a good prospect in the years to come. Same for Candellaro and Mattei. Patriarca and De Togni had potential, but they both wasted it all staying on bench or weak clubs.