Brazilian League 2011/2012

Quote from Bartek

I remember that in begin of season Joana has written that with Hooker Osasco may have some chances to beat Rio.

So what did happen during the whole season that Rio didn't win?

I think Osasco just got it right when it matter the most. Their players were free of injuries and they were in great shape. It was really tought to beat them because they were well balanced in offense, defense and setter Fabiola did a pretty good job.

As for Unilever there were many things going on and I believe some of them started at the end of the 2nd round of preliminary phase. Since the beggining we knew Unilever would be a team with weak reception but people wouldn't think Fabi and Valeskinha would do that bad. Natalia didn't play a single game and even though she is a not a good receiver at least she could be a good choice for high balls. And Venturini is not that young anymore so she wasn't 100% in shape and it wasn't easy for her running around the court in order to fix the team reception. I think Unilever just had too many ups and down. There were games with many individual mistakes, I think Valeskinha did poorly in reception and even Venturini made some mistakes while setting. Mari didn't play her best game and so it was too much for Sheilla... Anyway they made it to the gold medal game. I don't like Unilever but Venturini was a world class setter. I thought Bernardo was right when he said Brazilian Federation didn't give her any kind of award for all she's done for Brazilian NT.

Well.. CBV didn't do anything but Venturini sure filled our hearts. It was nice seeing her back even though she couldn't play at her best.

I used to admire Fernanda Venturini a lot, but she really disappointed me through out the years.

I think Brazil's Federation has no obligation to pay any tribute to her and that's why I think such awarding is not necessary:

1) Fernanda Venturini banalized her retirement. There were four retirements during her career.

2) When she was 28 (at the top of her form) she decided to retire from the National Team. We surely could have done a lot better with her on court from the 1999 season on but she didn't want to play for Brazil. I mean, she didn't give a damn for Brazil's NT from 1999 til 2003 and she only came back to the NT cause she knew we had some chances of winning Gold in Athens and when we lost she started to criticize Brazil's coach José Roberto Guimarães.

3) In 1998 when she retired from NT instead of helping Fofão, she declared to the press that Brazil's team would have a lot of difficulties with Fofão among the starters, because Fofão was too shy and she wouldn't be the leader Brazil's team need.

4) In 2008, one month before the OG she created a very embarrassing situation in the NT when she declared she wanted to play the Beijing OG. Zé Roberto had to give a press conference saying why he wouldn't choose her for NT.

I think it is hard to pay a tribute for a player who always reconsiders her retirement. It is difficult to take her retirements seriously and besides, when Brazil's Federation needed her the most, she decided to stay home. Of course she helped Brazil's NT but she could have done a lot more if she was really committed to achieving good results with the NT.