European Championship 2017 Azerbaijan&Georgia

  • Alright, Italy is playing very weak, but we also gotta give credit to Ukraine. They're fighting a lot in defense, their setter distributes extremely well and their middles are far better than Italy's middles.


    I imagine Diouf sitting at home thinking :woohoo: watching this match. Egonu was amazing in 1st set but after that made probably more points for Ukraine than for Italy, and Nicoletti seems not ready for this level.

  • "Nicoletti seems not ready for this level." This is very lowe level, if she is not ready for this why is she in NT ? :lol: :lol:


    They have much, much, much better opp.

  • Sylla was killing me, thank God she was replaced (too late for my taste).
    I really didn't like her before the OG Qualification in Tokyo, then I thought that I misjudged her and that her enthusiasm was good for the team, she was even one of my favorite in that tournament; during the OG she was completely off and I forgave her because there were a lot of girls playing badly... But now... C'mon, I can't believe she is so scared to attack that she keep doing this silly tips that foul anybodies and kept get defended, when she is supposed to be a strong arm'!
    I mean, also Egonu do a lot of tips, but they are often lovely and in fact they often fall down.


    Also Danesi (which I like) today needed to be replaced sooner than the fourth set, imho.


    I honestly didn't understand why Lucchi changed almost nothing/too late when we had already lost a set and were clearly losing the second one...
    I agree that Nicoletti isn't ready for the 'real' NT, but for this tournament I hoped she was...


    In general, yeah, very poor level.

  • Lucky escape for Italy with 5 consecutive points to win the tie-break. I think Ukraine deserved to win this match, but then they had to actually do it and not wait for the match to win itself for them :S
    Still, good performance by them IMO :!:

  • Nicoletti, of course she`s not ready, Doens`t she spend all season in Italy siting on the bench watching the foreigners play? ololo This is what happens.

    I just came across a statement of Angiolino Frigoni that I agree with very much: http://www.legavolleyfemminile.it/?p=61778


    "The biggest successes of both male and female Italy NTs came in the time when there were many foreigners in the league. The foreigners lift the quality of the league and that also is good for the local players because there is competition. It is wrong to guarantee young players a place on court just because they are Italian. They must be Italian AND good."

  • I don`t agree.


    in Brazil, China and Russia for example you only see a few foreigners and why are they so good or at least better than Italy, because all the local players are playing and not on the bench. And as soon as they have a young promissing talent she or he get the chance to play right away.


    How can Zhu at age 19 lead China to a Silver Medal at the WCH and at 21 OG Gold? Because she was playing and not sitting on the bench in the Chinesse League.
    If wanst for Club Italia Egonu, Oro, Danesi would not even be in the Seria A yet, not because they r not talented, but because the clubs dont give the chance for the young local players while they give the chance for all the foreigners.


    Things have changed a lot, a lot of teams are getting stronger. Just look at Serbia and Netherlands for example.
    Do you think if Boskovic and Lonekke were sitting on the bench all season long they would have been able to play this good at the NT? Even Boskovic the reason she can play like she does now at the age of 19 is because even tough the Serbian league is weak, but at least she was playing full time.


    Italy won the WCH in 2002, Serbia only played their first ever WCH in 2006.... Turkey got stronger, Belgium, etc


    back in 2002, Serbia, Belgium, Turkey, Nedtherlands were not even in the "international level".


    same for the men`s, in the 90's ....Poland,Bulgaria,Serbia,Argentina and so many others were not strong enough to win anything international.


    and why all those smaller countries are getting stronger? Because they have players playing in Italy, Turkey, and other countries. They get to play at the hight level.
    Do you think if all the Serbians were playing in Serbia or NED only playing the NED they would be where they are now?? of course not...

  • Poland lost set against Hungary :whistle:


  • and why all those smaller countries are getting stronger? Because they have players playing in Italy, Turkey, and other countries. They get to play at the hight level.
    Do you think if all the Serbians were playing in Serbia or NED only playing the NED they would be where they are now?? of course not...

    Serbia, Ned and USA


    And so what ? That is situation in all sports. Foreigne players are improving league and other players. Look how much are Turkey younge players are good. And they are training with one of the best players in world.



  • And that is my point.


    There`s always a price to pay.


    If Italy wants to have a strong league with a lot of players from across the globe. They can and will have it.


    But when their NT cant win anything...they cant complain.


    The price to pay is that they r making foreigners players stronger. Which makes other nations stronger. And right now a lot of those became stronger than Italy alreday.


    But finally the Italian Federation woke up and saw it happening. Didint they change the rule for 2017 or 2018? where a team can have only 3 foreigners on the court or something like that?

  • This same thing was happening in women's handball as well. Denmark used to be the absolute powerhouse, winning three Olympic gold medals in a row between 1996 and 2004. After that they dropped significantly, failing even to qualify for Beijing '08. A lot of people blamed it on the number of foreigners in the Danish league, which was by far the strongest in the world at the time. Then the economic crisis hit in, money ran out and most of those foreigners left elsewhere. Many were happy about that, thinking that now the domestic talent will be given a chance and the NT would benefit from it.
    And those young domestic players were given a chance. Plenty of chances, actually. And guess what? Danish NT never regained its former glory. Simply because the domestic players haven't been as good as the ones in their glory days. Now people are thinking of ways to attract more foreign players to the league in order to increase its level, so it would benefit the NT. Go figure.


    Like it's been said in this thread, the Italian NT had the most of its success when Italian league was the strongest in Europe. In fact, it was the ONLY strong league around. There were no other real leagues to speak of, only some individual clubs like Uralochka, Cannes, Tenerife, Azerail, or one-season wonders like Dubrovnik and such. When you look at the Italian teams' rosters back in the day, it's basically "Who's who in top volleyball", teams were filled with global stars to the brink and yet local talent still found a way to make itself know. Because it was there.
    I mean, the Italian league tanked big time after 2010 or so, did it coincide with the renaissance of Italian NT? Not really.

  • But there`s still a lof of foreigner players in Italy. They want to be the "only league "in the world like it was before? Thank God that wont happen, for the good of volleyball a lot of leagues got stronger, and hopefully that wont stop, is sad to see what is happening with the Arzebaijan league right now....Hopefully Brazilian and Chinesse keeps growing, and so for Turkey,Poland,Japan and so on...

    I counted once for curitosity the number of players from the Italian 2015-2016 female league, and Im not sure about the numbers right now, but I think the numbers of foreigner starters players were way higher than the local players.


    The only thing Italian League is missing are the Brazilians, years ago all the top Brazilians played in Italy.

  • Belarus won against Czech Republic (3:2) :white: It looks like Slovenia won't qualify to 2017 ECH.

  • Even if we are a bit off topic ^^', I agree that we need a strong league to improve.


    At the same time, it's also true that for young Italians it's difficult to find space (to let the Club bet on them and chose them when they only played in juniores tournaments and in minor series).
    For this reason I think the Club Italia is a very good solution: it allows the young girls to play in a strong league in a contest were they can play full time (a thing that at the moment unfortunately will never happen in a Club – especially a strong one – unlike Guidetti hopes).
    After an year in A1 in a 'safe' contest, it will be more easy for the Club to bet on these girls.
    We must admit, tough, that Spirito is the only one of the last CI chosen to be titular in a Club for the next season, but Busto is an exception and she isn't that you (1994, like Chirichella for example); anyway, Malinov, Danesi and Guerra (the strongest players leaving the CI) will play in top teams, so not bad. And who knows, may be they had offer to be titular in weaker Club and preferred a strongest team even if that means to be sub.


    Of course the down side of the medal is that also the foreigns improve if they play in a strong league ;)

  • just watched UKR-ITA.


    kyrichenko has what kevin barnett (US TV commentator) used to say about grün, 'goofy feet'. goncha is not as bad as these two.


    yurchenko hits hard, i like her. UKR overall is quite good, although they really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory there as noted above ...


    ITA is a huge mess! awful defense & passing, and sylla and egonu -- so physically impressive -- but so erratic. egonu when she connects (including in serve) is unstoppable , but 1/3 of the time she's flailing the ball out of court by 2 meters. sylla is getting worse with passing. i think her problem in attacking is that she's trying to go for a fast ball but she's jumping too early and has to tip a lot. so frustrating.

  • Greece for slo 22-25/9





    S: Athina Papafwtiou, Chara Papadopoulou
    OPP : Eleni Kiosi
    OH: Eva Chantava, Alexia Kalantaridou, Litsa Merteki, Sia Totsidou
    MB: Tzina Lambrousi, Anna Kalatantze, Melina Emmanouilidou
    L: Marialena Artakianou, Iliana Iakovidou


    Sotiris Drikos (coach of the mens national team) said tha Djuric is a top class player but plays for the nt unlike many females players. He has also said that one injured female player ( vasilantonaki ?) was playing for her club.



  • Is there any top class female player that does not play for nt? I can only think of Stranzali and Vasilantonaki, one is in USA and other one is inured

  • Poland for 2nd Leg:


    S: Joanna Wołosz, Marlena Pleśnierowicz
    OP: Tamara Kaliszuk (also OH), Małgorzata Jasek (also MB)
    OH: Malwina Smarzek (also OP), Julia Twardowska, Emilia Mucha, Martyna Grajber, Aleksandra Krzos (backrow specialist)
    MB: Agnieszka Kąkolewska, Kamila Ganszczyk, Zuzanna Efimienko
    L: Agata Sawicka, Agata Witkowska


    no Natalia Mędrzyk, Anna Grejman and Berenika Tomsia :white: despite Smarzek is during converting to OH I hope to see her on right wing instead of Kaliszuk :whistle:

    Gold medal - World League 2013 Prediction Game
    Bronze medal - World League 2012 Prediction Game