Olympic Games - 2016 | 8 | 6

  • didnt watch the game but judging by other people comments it seems serbia choked again when it is most important that is what is most frustrating about volleyball nt both in men and women they simple dont have a winner mentality, think somebody wrote brankica suffers from biopolar lol i dont think that is the case i think she is really mentaly weak person and when she is under pressure she gets drained out and she chokes big time i v said loads of time that serbia has an average libero i take that back they have worse libero of any top 10 teams plus busa shouldnt be there in the first place think even djerisilo or malagurski would be a better option then her, for the future i m not worried cause ana antonijevic could come back to nt if maja quits, and imo ana is better then maja actually she doesnt choke as mutch as maja as well ,all things considered it was a good game from serbia in rio,althought i really think they have to work mentaly big time only then will they be champs

  • didnt watch the game but judging by other people comments it seems serbia choked again when it is most important that is what is most frustrating about volleyball nt both in men and women they simple dont have a winner mentality, think somebody wrote brankica suffers from biopolar lol i dont think that is the case i think she is really mentaly weak person and when she is under pressure she gets drained out and she chokes big time i v said loads of time that serbia has an average libero i take that back they have worse libero of any top 10 teams plus busa shouldnt be there in the first place think even djerisilo or malagurski would be a better option then her, for the future i m not worried cause ana antonijevic could come back to nt if maja quits, and imo ana is better then maja actually she doesnt choke as mutch as maja as well ,all things considered it was a good game from serbia in rio,althought i really think they have to work mentaly big time only then will they be champs

    You are too harsh, I think. Actually the majority of the forum is too harsh in general: whenever one team wins it is said to be because the other team choked or underperformed or is just not really a good team. China played a really good match, Serbia did not play their best, but it is not fair to just say they choked, especially as they showed a great winning mentality in the semis to turn around the momentum and beat USA when it looked very unlikely at one stage.


    I don't think Popovic is a great libero at all, but she played well in this tournament until the final. I agree that Busa and Nikolic should not have been at the tournament at all and Terzic made a mistake picking them. Ana is a very good setter, no doubt but she has not been picked since when, 2011? There is certainly no guarantee that she will be picked if Ognjenovic retires and even if she is you would probably quickly decide she is a choker too.


    At least we can agree that Serbia did very well at these Olympics and imo they should be proud of themselves.

  • being from Serbia i know a thing or 2 about mentality of serbian nt both male and female and general mentality of my people that being said i aint being harsh at all i m just being real,like i said i havent watch the game but judging what people said about it i drew conclusions,and yes it seemes serbia choked and it choked big and it wasnt the first time either they had so many chances to win big things in the past and they failed, with the names they have in nt they should be in top 3 all the time yet both male and female underperforemed big time female nt in that regard is way worse then male one,just check what did female nt win last 10 years 1 european gold and that championship was played in serbia i m talking about gold medals only,the facts is serbia has the worse libero of all top 10 teams if u think differently can u name 1 that is worse then popovic.Thing about terzic is he is great coach to develop a player at the start of theirs carrier but he aint the best coach for this nt imo u need someone with top end skills and imo he doesnt have them u will see this years in women cl i dont think volero zurich will go to f4 2016/2017 cycle he cut some players that could of made a difference and took 2 players that are really a burden for nt busa and nikolic,althought the first one has potental to be a great player but she just aint on that level now.Ana imo is better setter and she doesnt have a tendency to black out /choke up as maja does and maja did it loads of times she for the first part of her career was more intrested in her bf then volleyball and with this new guy it seems she is back to old habits,thing about why ana wasnt picked is she was allways under some kind of injury and she had laods of operations and recovery times and didint wonna risk it,i m a big fan of serbian nt but i just call it as it is in order to improve u have to face the truth and not blame it on a poor day ,judges or whatever u can find to justify your loss,thing what pisses me off most about women nt is whenever they lose important matches their excusse is we are a small country with 7 mil people and we should be proud of the resault that we got even thought they have best nt in the world imo just by looking throw names

  • You are too harsh, I think. Actually the majority of the forum is too harsh in general: whenever one team wins it is said to be because the other team choked or underperformed or is just not really a good team. China played a really good match, Serbia did not play their best, but it is not fair to just say they choked, especially as they showed a great winning mentality in the semis to turn around the momentum and beat USA when it looked very unlikely at one stage.


    I don't think Popovic is a great libero at all, but she played well in this tournament until the final. I agree that Busa and Nikolic should not have been at the tournament at all and Terzic made a mistake picking them. Ana is a very good setter, no doubt but she has not been picked since when, 2011? There is certainly no guarantee that she will be picked if Ognjenovic retires and even if she is you would probably quickly decide she is a choker too.


    At least we can agree that Serbia did very well at these Olympics and imo they should be proud of themselves.


    @ Shiznut81, why do not you at least watch the whole final match in full first before commenting? :-) lol


    @ Sisko95, what you said is so true... seems some folks have too many interests over the blame game!


    “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

  • being from Serbia i know a thing or 2 about mentality of serbian nt both male and female and general mentality of my people that being said i aint being harsh at all i m just being real,like i said i havent watch the game but judging what people said about it i drew conclusions,and yes it seemes serbia choked and it choked big and it wasnt the first time either they had so many chances to win big things in the past and they failed, with the names they have in nt they should be in top 3 all the time yet both male and female underperforemed big time female nt in that regard is way worse then male one,just check what did female nt win last 10 years 1 european gold and that championship was played in serbia i m talking about gold medals only,the facts is serbia has the worse libero of all top 10 teams if u think differently can u name 1 that is worse then popovic.Thing about terzic is he is great coach to develop a player at the start of theirs carrier but he aint the best coach for this nt imo u need someone with top end skills and imo he doesnt have them u will see this years in women cl i dont think volero zurich will go to f4 2016/2017 cycle he cut some players that could of made a difference and took 2 players that are really a burden for nt busa and nikolic,althought the first one has potental to be a great player but she just aint on that level now.Ana imo is better setter and she doesnt have a tendency to black out /choke up as maja does and maja did it loads of times she for the first part of her career was more intrested in her bf then volleyball and with this new guy it seems she is back to old habits,thing about why ana wasnt picked is she was allways under some kind of injury and she had laods of operations and recovery times and didint wonna risk it,i m a big fan of serbian nt but i just call it as it is in order to improve u have to face the truth and not blame it on a poor day ,judges or whatever u can find to justify your loss,thing what pisses me off most about women nt is whenever they lose important matches their excusse is we are a small country with 7 mil people and we should be proud of the resault that we got even thought they have best nt in the world imo just by looking throw names

    You say that Serbia should have the best team in the world, to me they don't. I agree Popovic is not that good a player, Malesevic is not that good a player and Mihajlovic is weak on reception. This means Serbia's reception is often not good enough to beat the best teams. That IMO is the reason they rarely win tournaments. My point is that they have showed good mental strength in the past, such as in the SF v USA and in the world cup last year.You prefer Ana to Maja and that is your opinion but I disagree.

  • Terzic said Serbia was not mentally ready, after first set all they could think is GOLD.


    This really sucks, and I won't feel bad for them, waited their whole life for this moment and not being ready is bull crap..... :bump:

  • Serbia's problem other than reception is that they rely too much on Boskovic and Mihajlovic. Yes, Rasic will contribute, but they need an OH who can both receive and consistently score, because at the moment if Boskovic or Mihajlovic plays a bad match, such as in the final, the setter's options are too limited.


    As for what Terzic said, this may be true but it is hard not to think of gold after winning the first set in the OG final, but I would have expected them to respond better when they realised that China would not just roll over. But honestly, IMO, the main reason they lost is that China played 3 great sets in a row. Sure, Serbia were not fantastic and maybe they were distracted by the thought of gold, but there is no shame in losing to this China team who have beaten them repeatedly in this Olympic cycle anyway.

  • Well, Malesevic scored 11 points in the final, she can score but Maja always goes to B&M and only goes to Malesevic when B&M can't score.


    And I'm sure is not even her, probably Terzic telling her that.


    But Maleaevic receives more than 50%, why would she need to score also? More than fair to make Boskovic score :dance6:


    Of course China deserved, they were the best, and I don't see anybody beating them anytime soon. They are and will be the best team for a long time.

  • I am a little surprised Rasic was the best server.. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to taking anything away from her, but she has always been a very bad server, and by bad I mean missing many serves, and in crucial moments..not that she serves easy lolypops.. Guidetti in Vakif changed her serving style a bit, and it has helped her serve harder and make less mistakes, but still I have no trust when she comes to the service line.. To me she is very much like Bahar, strong serve when she gets it in, although Milena's serves are quite different..

  • Congrats to the Olympic medalists once again, I felt a bit disappointed when Serbia got beaten by China but what matters is that they have silvers to head home with. Now I'd like to conclude my views on European teams. In one word, what a tournament for Serbia and the Netherlands, those girls really saved Europe's butt. Russians were a bit disappointing as well as being crushed by Serbia that easily, they looked completely hopeless, not even trying to give a fight. Italy, I don't know how many of you had expected this but I sorta presumed they would be a mess as a team since Lo bianco came back to the NT. There's no way I'm saying she's bad but IMO Bonitta shouldn't have called her back, there was Del core, Centoni and Guiggi as veterans. You might ask if Malinov would have played better than Lo bianco and I say yes, at least she's a young starving player for victories.


    Serbia - Mihajlovic's poor performance in the final totally screwed her team but overall she was a beast, I wonder how stronger she could hit. Boskovic on the other hand is totally fearless, obviously she makes a lot of errors but she saves her team when they need her help. Ognjenovic drove me crazy whenever I watched Serbia. For me she's the best in the world and always will be, however she could have been better. Rasic is definitely someone Serbia should never miss. She always does her job regardless of whom she has over the net. Stevanovic and Veljkovic were good too, as for Malesevic, I wanted her to play better and sometimes get replaced by Nikolic but she proved me I was too early to think like that. She was the hidden star for Serbia against Russia and USA, great reception and outstanding spirit. Popovic was disastrous in the final, yet all in all she was okay. Here's Serbia's new task, finding a good libero to replace Popovic and Cebic as they are already over 30 and I don't see any new improvements.
    Busa, what was she there for? her beauty? Malagurski could have been useful IMO, especially when Mihajlovic couldn't just overcome the pressure.


    The Netherlands - I completely agree with Sander's statement on Dutch NT's thread. 15 months ago, I assure there was no one who thought the dutch team would make it to the Olympic games and advance to semi final. Guidetti has done such an outstanding job and the players successfully did what they were asked to do. A medal would have been a lot nicer though ;) A beautiful goodbye to Steenbergen and Stam. Especially the latter one has given everything she had to the team as libero. Last year I expected she would struggle a lot on her new position even though she was a good passer and digger back then, thanks debby for proving I was wrong. She has given a lesson, everyone needs time to be good at one thing, until then you gotta suck for a while, but Debby didn't even need time to get used to her new position. Pietersen was IMO the leader who took her team to the semifinal, obviously Slöetjes was the player Dijkema trusted the most, but 27yo OH did a much better job than everyone had expected both in attack and passing. Plak is a big mess, I hope she will study and learn and improve. The others were okay, maybe Slöetjes couldn't play as spectacular as she could, I want to believe it was owing to tiredness or pressure, probably not though. Dijkema was good too, she's not an Ognjenovic or a Takeshita but a decent setter, in particular compared to her past :roll: De Kruijf was excellent too and Beliën too, despite her infinite serve errors.


    Russia - I don't want to blame anybody as I don't know the behind story. It might be related to the doping drama or something else, I'm not interested...the fact is that they once again failed to grab an Olympic medal and didn't play as good as they did in 2013. The two setters (Pankova and Vetrova) were nightmarish, they looked super immature compared to the Serbian. Goncharova was utterly disappointing too, even if she realizes she can't hit through the blocks, she MUST find something that she could contribute, but at the end... :rolleyes:
    Kosheleva and Malova were the only players who fought until the end. I kinda disliked this statement but now I can tell it - Russia will be gone without Kosheleva. The middles were okay but no one dominating like Akinreadewo or Rasic.


    Italy - As I already have mentioned above, I expected them to drop out, if they were in the pool A, they might have qualified but not for too long. I questioned myself why Bonitta kept Egonu all the time while Centoni who must know how to calm the younger girls down and bring some positive energy was cheerleading at the bench. Chirichella is a good MB in my personal opinion, but she needs to learn how to not get frustrated all the time as it may affect her overall performance. Del Core seemed to be out of shape but everyone knows she's always there to help team's passing and she's the anchor of the team. De Gennaro was all below my expectations, compared to her amazing performance in Conegliano and past performance in NT. Guiggi, quite invisible, Orro, not even perfectly healthy. Ortolani, great fighter, I wish she were given a chance in zone 2 as she's more confident there. Gennari, I have no idea what her role was. If Del Core was out of shape and needed some rest, Alessia could have replaced her at least for a second.


    Lastly, A massive applause to retiring players. (For both clubs and NT) Harmotto, Thompson, Stam-Pilon, Steenbergen and Del Core, you all have been so real :rose:

  • Xu Yunli and Wei Qiuyue officially announced their retirement from National Team after Rio Olympic Games.
    Whether the both will attend the national league will depend on the physical condition.

    i may not be the tallest,
    the fastest, or the strongest,
    but at least i can do one thing better than anyone else,
    to be me...

  • Hi


    Is it true that China is the only gold medalist in women's volleyball Olympic games history that lost three preliminary matches before wining gold ? I know Brazil was also ranked 4th from their group in 2012. But this team lost only two matches.