So none from pools' winners advance to Semifinal 
European Championships - 2013 - hosts Denmark and Poland
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Congrats Bulgaria! Three key players to the victory:
Sokolov beyond doubt
Penchev finally can spike well in addition to his solid reception and defense
Fromm -- Bulgaria had a very successful service game today to keep him out of the court most of the time. Schwarz played a good game but his offensive power is incomparable to Fromm -
In the end, it's the German team who choked. They made many unnecessary errors. I also don't understand why the coach didn't let Tischer play. Kampa couldn't cope with the pressure and made many bad sets to Grozer. Kaliberda also underperformed -- there's still a long way for him to become a star player.
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Overall well deserved victory for Serbia, able to afford an incredible amount of serve errors (22!)
Huge line-up of talent, but in the end I was most impressed by Kovacevic: very few errors, 69% in attack and consistently serving strong.
Belgium had the opportunity to take the lead in 3th set, but couldn't commit 6 set points: Serbia kept scoring side-outs, waiting for a Belgian error, which eventually came.
Best Belgian player: Sam Deroo + great entrance by Van Walle after having very few opportunities this summer to prove what a great player he is.
Not to forget: Klinkenberg - todays topscorer on Belgian side (13/19), although he was struggling in serve. -
Someone (I think scarpetta) wrote that this could be Zaytsev's tournament. Up to now, this is certainly Sokolov's tournament!Yup, definitely. I hope he'll prove his advantage over Zaytsev in direct match against Italy.
So none from pools' winners advance to Semifinal
Actually all of those teams have played much more interesting volleyball, than their killes from the quaterfinal. So fuckin' unfair, I hate this tournament, seriously!
Anyway, it's time for me to cheer on Bulgaria, I don't want to see Italy fighting for gold. Well, as well as Bulgaria, but... 
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Muse, if we play for gold you at least can say that your loss is not for nothing, it is better to lose vs finalist than vs team who will end ass-kicked later.
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Congrats to Russia !
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OK then, dream is over......;(
Congratulations to Bulgaria
I feel a bit more disappointed than expected, but at least, it looks like they went down fighting. Thats all i wanted to see.
Just had a brief look at the stats, and besides aces and blocks, it looks quite level. 13:6 aces and 14:9 blocks for Bulgaria looks a bit too much to win a match. -
I really feel for Belgium, of all teams topping their pools Belgium probably was closer to take advantage on, but...eh, well...
Now the big question is....who's gonna take the 4th place
yeah, the one and only 
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There seems to be a lot of criticism towards Kaliberda. From the numbers i see 7 direct faults in reception. That is definetely too much. But he took 53 balls
with 62% positive and 34% excellent reception. Furthermore he had to attack most balls in german team and still reached 52% efficiency. Thats way too much for him and i guess he lost focus in decisive moments. He is not, and most probably will never be, the player who can carry a team in reception and attack.But anyway, Kaliberda and the whole team played a good tournament and went down with pride. Well done guys
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Tsetso... it's just unbelievable how he's still growing and growing stronger every year. Simply scary what will be in next 2 or 3 years... And I really appreciate his friendly reaction after the match yesterday when he crossed under the net to hug Zygadlo.
My second favourite is not disappointing me so far, as well. I mean Niki Nikolov. Great to see him in such a shape.
You guys complain about Toshko but the truth is he ended some key balls. He is such a block-out pissing-off hitter. Not that I'm complaining now. But seriously what I'll remember after yesterday's drama will be that we couldn't stop him. And what about Skrimov... He's same pain in the ass as Kubiak and Lyneel are. Such a smart player.
Salparov is another case. I was always pretty big fan of him and he just reminded me why. What a pity Bulgaria won't meet France. I would totally enjoy Salparov vs Grebennikov.I won't be doing big drama here. Just wanted to write that whatever happened, big heart for my guys. Watching Winiar especially in tie-break I had such a feeling that he was giving more than 100%, more than he was in that moment capable of. Total heart-devotion. And Bartek... it's not your fault. Mercy, please. No one will blame you so don't blame yourself. I'm sure he'll gave his best. For the first time this year, I'm sure. And Fabian totally has balls. Match point for Bulgarians and he was setting to Grześ Bociek who had even bigger balls to finished attack. I'm proud of both - Fabian and Grześ. I hope they'll have an excellent league season - just let them play.
One of the most terrifying match I've ever seen and I've seen a few. Never forget for sure. I just hope guys will be ok. I feel a little bit better 'cause fans showed them they're still with them. Maybe this would soothe the pain at least a little.Can't believe I'm so calm. I hope it's not like that I used to this pain or sth. Because to get used to pain means to give up in some way. And I don't want to give up. Don't want our guys to give up either. In the end I don't want Andrea to give up on them too.
And I'm really happy for Bulgarians today. Make it "fourth time lucky", please. Three times in a row fourth place. Now it's time for more.
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Congrats to Russia and Bulgaria. Bulgaria is my second favorite team now after Russia.
I hope Bulgaria finally defeat Italy hehehe.
Before I make my prediction, will Parodi play in the semifinals? Savani ?? -
Someone (I think scarpetta) wrote that this could be Zaytsev's tournament. Up to now, this is certainly Sokolov's tournament!no doubt
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France, LOL. I thought they can keep their advantage.
France is a highly imbalanced team but a surprisingly difficult opponent. Partially because of the defensive drive but mainly because Russia's plan for the game was "Let us start somehow and then see how it goes". Sivo proved his high class once again - 9% in attack this time :). A libero would have scored more. Spirik and Grankin have a clear problem as the former hits out of tempo all the time, the ball is constantly behind his back.
As for the French lack of balance, Ngapeth and Grebennikov are seriously good. All-round skills of the team are excellent. But extremely poor blocking and overall MBs are pretty disappointing. The opposites are one worse than the other - again both defended really well. France struggled to convert their transition balls unless Ngapeth was readily available. Poor chap had to even spike short in the middle once. The left-handed OH - Lyneel - scored a lot but he was clearly a discovery for Russia, just like Grozer in the game vs Germany :). He was in serious trouble by set 4. However, the worst about this French team was that their game plan seemed to be identical to that of Russia, e.g. they didn't seem to do any "homework" before the game with a strong opponent. I don't know why they would set two blocks to Muserskiy and leave Pavlov or Ilinykh to spike against their setter.
As a result, we had a fun game, of which Ilinykh was clearly one of the heroes. Not only because of his spiking skills but also because the French decided to target him with their serve... and stopped serving aggressively like they did in set 2. So far, the game had a record number of gift points from the Referee ho helped to keep France afloat as much as it was possible. Lots of block touches went undiscovered. The second opposite (Sidibe) is always on the 3-meter line when he's back court. Well, we have to thank the Ref for keeping the intrigue alive. Another funny thing was music that was played during the actual action (i.e. when the ball was in the game) and some kind of announcements were made. Is this a normal practice in Poland? Sounded very unusual.
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It is really hard to believe that there are no better OH available for russia at the moment
Some were having surgery this summer and some (e.g. Biryukov) were missed out for unclear reasons. We had a long discussion about that somewhere in this topic. Basically, out of the four OHs, Spiridonov is the biggest talent (but as it frequently happens, the biggest liability too). Ilinykh is a strong attacker capable of playing opposite but a very average defender. Sivozhelez and Zhilin deservedly spent a decent part of the season on the bench. I have a feeling that France have identified Sivozhelez as a leader of Russina attacks and by blocking him completely fulfilled the game plan :).
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There seems to be a lot of criticism towards Kaliberda. From the numbers i see 7 direct faults in reception. That is definetely too much. But he took 53 balls
with 62% positive and 34% excellent reception. Furthermore he had to attack most balls in german team and still reached 52% efficiency. Thats way too much for him and i guess he lost focus in decisive moments. He is not, and most probably will never be, the player who can carry a team in reception and attack.But anyway, Kaliberda and the whole team played a good tournament and went down with pride. Well done guys
Kaliberda has an annoying surname and so is harshly criticized :). In fact, he was good at both reception and defense. Nobody is perfect of course but I don't think that Kaliberda's technique should be a subject for criticism from the Bulgarian side. Compared to Penchev or Skrimov, Kaliberda is flawless :). As for the last game, Bulgaria targeted clearly Kaliberda with the service and did it really well as he conceded 7 aces. 52% in attack is OK for him as he attacks frequenty on the moving block or hits pipe. Despite of his non-arian surname, Kaliberda seems to be a leader in this German team. I have heard that he used to captain the youth team too.
I don't think that was a good tournament for Germany and the reason, I think, was absolutely wrong conditioning. They played a needlessly stellar first game and from that on it was going down, down, down. My feeling is that the quarter final was the objective of the German team, otherwise I can't explain this planning. Although the quarterfinal against Bulgaria may look like a close game statistically, in reality it looked like a game between two teams playing different divisions. Yes, the top division team looked a bit tired and quite a bit generous but overall the class difference was very obvious. The German coach made several funny decisions, mainly useless ones. His team played too slow to close the gap in individual skills (all apart from Kaliberda and Grozer, two biggest German patriots :)). Kampa was very poor, in particular.
Heynen likes to put a massive marker into his mouth, which looks pretty freudian :). Interesting guy... He definitely does something to German volleyball but I can't say that this something is necessarily good.
Bulgaria are going to be very difficult to stop now. This is the first time in 30 years that they have these amounts of confidence. A great chance to kill their demon = to beat Italy. Funny enough, it is "to kill the demon" for Russia too as we rarely win against Serbia :).
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Penchev will be one of the best receivers in the World in future.
So sad He will sit on Rzeszów's bench. -
Penchev will be one of the best receivers in the World in future.
So sad He will sit on Rzeszów's bench.
You're definitely overreacting. His excellent serve made a difference yesterday (but here Germany was acting like a kids), few attacks, too, but it doesn't make him a world's best in the future. Especially, when he'll stop playing for two seasons because he has signed with team clearly able to destroy talents
But I hope he'll fight for his place 
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sivozelez gets blocked even against simple block all the time, in every match this ECH so far.... besides, his behaviour on court reminds me of giba and other brazilian players
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You're definitely overreacting. His excellent serve made a difference yesterday (but here Germany was acting like a kids), few attacks, too, but it doesn't make him a world's best in the future. Especially, when he'll stop playing for two seasons because he has signed with team clearly able to destroy talents But I hope he'll fight for his place Ahhh, you all sat him on the bench while I'm sensing he will have more to tell in the game than all expect
