France for the first WL weekend:
S: Benjamin Toniutti, Pierre Pujol
OPP: Antonin Rouzier, Thibault Rossard
MB: Kevin Le Roux, Nicolas Le Goff, Franck Lafitte, Horacio D’Almeida
OH: Kevin Tillie, Nicolas Maréchal, Trévor Clevenot, Julien Lyneel
L: Jenia Grebennikov, Hubert Henno
Where to watch http://www.fivb.org/EN/Media/v….asp?No=62102&Language=en
What a match by Lucarelli! 
I've also never seen Lucão serve as consistently as he did today, very impressive.
Actually Lucão used to be a great server in Cimed's time and it seems his Italy's journey helped him to back on track.
I've always been fan of Lucarelli, he is certainly one of the best players nowadays, but i don't trust on him in crucial times. Both in NT and club he's been accumulating defeats, and considerang our second OH can't score, it will be all about him at OG. Hope he manages to deal with it and develo in this period .
Iran kept the level of OG qualifier what is not enough to threat Brazil, the positive point was the good presentation of Manavinezhad, but Iran can do A LOT MORE.
^ I agree Iran can do a lot more. I was honestly kinda surprised at how poor their reception was today.
Also watched USA-ARG and it was quite an entertaining game! USA is still far from their best shape, but ARG really managed to level the field with them, even without Conte. I personally really liked Lima, Poglajen and libero Gonzalez from ARG's side tonight. Meanwhile, USA played pretty much without an OPP, but Priddy and Sander were more than enough.
What I like about Argentina now is that we no longer give up when the opponent takes 3, 4 point advantage or when we are 2 sets down, now they fight to the end.
Still, we miss too many serves (Lima serve error in set 2 set point...) and block too little to win against these teams.
Gonzalez is in great shape. I'm sorry for Closter who played all the olympic cicle, but he should be the libero in OG. Poglajen despite making 12 points isn't convicing at all, but so are Quiroga and Palacios. I hate that Conte is always injured when we have to play WL.
BTW has anyone noticed Italy's ABSURD schedule?
Out of the 9 matches, they play:
-2 times with both Belgium and Australia (!)
-4 matches with teams ranked outside top 5 -> Serbia, Iran, Argentina, France (yes, I know France ranking is deceiving, but still..)
-1 match with USA
They don't face Brazil, Poland or Russia.
They are 90% sure in finals!
Display MoreBTW has anyone noticed Italy's ABSURD schedule?
Out of the 9 matches, they play:
-2 times with both Belgium and Australia (!)
-4 matches with teams ranked outside top 5 -> Serbia, Iran, Argentina, France (yes, I know France ranking is deceiving, but still..)
-1 match with USA
They don't face Brazil, Poland or Russia.
They are 90% sure in finals!
Yes, we noticed it the moment they released the schedule. We had a discussion back then. I said that you can't put those teams in the same final standings when they clearly face opponents of different level. World Grand Prix's format is a joke, it is black humour that they applied it to the men's tournament this year. They could've certainly come up with a better formula for the men, let's not dive into that topic again, but the formula is ridiculous.
wtf italy :D?
wtf italy :D?
Obviously they don't want to win. Blengini isn't changing anything, Juantorena is sitting on a bench, Antonov is entering as a sub for Vettori. All in all they doesnt seem interested at all.
This is pathetic, I mean Italy 
There were hints from some websites before this match. Zaytsev and Lanza over Juantorena is the choise of Blengini . He wants to give Zaytsev freedom in reception and perhaps he doesn't think so highly on Juantorena.
Now what I'm waiting is the reaction of Juantorena. Using Zaytsev/Lanza line-up even for experiment is a kind of insult to him. Let's see if he is ok with it.
There were hints from some websites before this match. Zaytsev and Lanza over Juantorena is the choise of Blengini . He wants to give Zaytsev freedom in reception and perhaps he doesn't think so highly on Juantorena.
Now what I'm waiting is the reaction of Juantorena. Using Zaytsev/Lanza line-up even for experiment is a kind of insult to him. Let's see if he is ok with it.
I don't have high opinion on Blengini, IMO he is overrated coach. If this is true then I don't have anything to say. ZAytsev is playing as OPP for 3-4 years, Lanza was injured for over 2 months...
Kaziyski, do you really think that Blengini is overrated? I mean, there is actually someone that thinks he his a great coach, in order to say that he is 'overrated'? Overrated by who? O.o
In Italy – especially after the epic fail with Lube – he isn't that esteemed...
BTW, bad match by Italy, but I'm not that surprised considering that the last official tournament we played was back in September (unlike France) and considering that we moved Zaytsev as OH.
Btw, I think (or really hope...) the idea is Juantorena - Zaytsev, not Zaytsev -Lanza.
Juantorena rests because he is injuried, but I don't know if it's knee or his arm. Anyway for me Blengini was not so bad. He made Latina constructed with medio players play great. Ok Lube was an epic fail and it's also his fault, but first Lube was tragicaly bulided... You shouldn't expect anything great from Italy as it was their first official match this season. I be they are still not fresh after the gym training
If posters opinions here somehow reflect the public opinion in Italy, then it seems that Blengini is already at a point where he has nothing to win anymore. Probably needs to win World League and Olympics straight 
.
Does someone have the russian roster for this weekend?
Juantorena rests because he is injuried, but I don't know if it's knee or his arm. Anyway for me Blengini was not so bad. He made Latina constructed with medio players play great. Ok Lube was an epic fail and it's also his fault, but first Lube was tragicaly bulided... You shouldn't expect anything great from Italy as it was their first official match this season. I be they are still not fresh after the gym training
Sottile-Skrimov-Urnaut-Starovic-Van de Voorde ??? It is not that they won the league, they finished at 6th place in regular season.
QuoteToday the Tsar was joined by Filippo Lanza and not by Osmany Juantorena as indicated the day before. A solution that provides more coverage in the reception but that cuts off the power
I think this journalists source is someone from Zaytsev team but I'm not sure. Maybe I'm wrong.
If posters opinions here somehow reflect the public opinion in Italy, then it seems that Blengini is already at a point where he has nothing to win anymore. Probably needs to win World League and Olympics straight
Does someone have the russian roster for this weekend?
S: Grankin, Kovalev
OPP: Bakun, Poletaev
OH: Markin, Klyuka, Volkov, Tetyukhin
MB's: Muserskiy, A.Volkov, Volvich, Gutsalyuk
L: Verbov, Ermakov
Yes, Blengini is overrated. He is responsibile for Lube's tragic season, with NT did good only on WC eventhough Italy was extremly lucky there. Heynen, Hoag, Alekno f.e are vball professors for him.
S: Grankin, Kovalev
OPP: Bakun, Poletaev
OH: Markin, Klyuka, Volkov, Tetyukhin
MB's: Muserskiy, A.Volkov, Volvich, Gutsalyuk
L: Verbov, Ermakov
Yes, Blengini is overrated. He is responsibile for Lube's tragic season, with NT did good only on WC eventhough Italy was extremly lucky there. Heynen, Hoag, Alekno f.e are vball professors for him.
Yes. But how long he is coach and how long they are coaches?