2012 Olympic Games

while I haven't seen/heard interview from brazil, i didn't see anything unusual from the 1st set towards the end of the game. so i don't know what all these fuss all about brazil.

if we're going to debate about brazilians' or any other teams' attitudes, perhaps we can create a new thread for it? this thread is all about the london olympics you know?

brazil won over russia
brazil celebrates
there are people who love the brazilian team
there are people who hate the brazilian team
brazil and russia hate each other

end of story

Quote from andyivan

Why does Thaisa has to publicly say she dislike a player?

maybe because she was asked about it
most of sites, newspapers in Brazil will always say about the whole "Gamova hates brazilian players" thing and they will always bring that up.

and as for the handshake in WC 2010 my take on it is still "people see what they want to see". AFAIK the same thing happened when Brazil won the OG in 2008 but Brazil was celebrating their gold medal while USA players were hugging each other after the loss. WTF they just won the tournament, it's a time to celebrate while the other team will probably be sad... who cares about hand shake at this point???

I remember brazilian players were really crying out loud after losing the WC 2010 and I truly believe they didn't shake russian hands because they simply thought Russia wouldn't care about it nor because they refused.... The same thing as OG 2008 when Brazil won and celebrated while USA players were just hugging each other like "that's it... we did our best"... USA players didn't care about hand shaking but after some minutes Fofao went to the other side and gave a compliment to every USA player, mainly Dani Scott.

Leaving Brazil and Russia aside I just can't believe Italy lost once again at the quaterfinals. It feels like a curse. For 3 straight OG they were the favorite but lost... It kinda reminds me of their men team that won everything but the OG.

We are about to start the SF. Please, let us think about it. Not the "animosity." Thanks.

I talk about Brazil and Russia that it is very ugly in my opinion. It has fans from both teams here who does not have one and do not like the other has people like the two teams.
Just because I like the team of Brazil, I will not speak against the team of russia.

A couple of ideas I'd like to share about Brazil's victory and the upcoming matches:

1)I think most people said that already, and I kept enphasizing that while watching the match: the very key for Russia losing, or just overall underperforming, was Russia's very poor service. While watching the match, I realized how these days none of the russian girls uses jump serves. Quite a difference situation when you campare to the great russian team that got silver medal in 2000, for instance. Brazilian reception has tons of vulnerabilities, pretty much among all three receivers. Russia never took advantage of that. Dani Lins played all 5 sets with the ball on her hands and, kudos to her, she played an excellent match. Russian block struggled A LOT. (It worked better in the end of the 3rd set, thanks to a good - maybe the only good - sequence of serves by Gamova.) Thaísa had 19 points in attack. I'm sure Brazil wouldn't have been able to take the match the fifth set if not for those very precious points, cause our OH's would struggle to score anyway. That made the whole difference. It's like Russia didn't strategize very well for the match, like didn't really believe Brazil could beat them. Brazil, on the other hand, though not being always consistent with their serve, seemed to be very tactically prepared to handle Russia's strong attacks - specially Gamova's. She suffered a lot with the good brazilian defense. And Brazil improved their defense so much, compared to the game versus US! Great match by Sokolova, as well. If this is really her last match with the russian jersey, I think she can leave proud. Gamova, though people saying she'll probably retire, I think she'll come back. Probably she's just disappointed in the result. But she's still has a lot more to give to this NT. And she might wanna take a revenge against brazilians in Brazil in 4 years. That'd be quite interesting.

For semifinals, I think:

2)Brazil vs Japan will probably be the more balanced of the semis. I see it's a mental battle for Brazil, rather than a tactical one. We've all been following Japan this tournament and we've all seen what's their approach in the match against China. They work pretty much based on position 4.That's how they score, wether if it's with Kimura or Ebata. Brazil obviously has a more sophisticated way of playing and plenty of resources to stop Japan's attacks. What's tricky is Brazil's gonna have to have a lot of patience and mental strenght - which they showed this OG in the match against Russia, but, I'm afraid, pretty much only in the match against Russia - to defeat Japan, cause they're restless defensewise, so Brazil's gonna have to attack a lot and use a lot of diversity against Japan's defense. I think Brazil can do it, specially since it seems now Dani Lins developped an unseen sense of confidence. And, sad enough, Brazil won't be able to rely on Sassá this time around. Also important to note that sometimes Brazil focus too much on a particular opponent. I think in 2010, Brazil's target was Italy, because they have been losing to them quite frequently, and they saw them as their biggest competition. Brazil studied Italy, destroyed Italy in the WCH, (25x7!), but then, in the final match, was not able to stop Gamova. Last year, in the GP, I think Brazil totally focused Russia, having losing to them the year before, and in the final match, didn't expect USA to be so strong as they were, specially since Brazil had been usually beating USA up til that point. And then USA crushed Brazil and it did again several times after. So, now, brazilians have to be very focused, cause these last couple of years, Japan showed they can totally beat them, and just this amazing victory against Russia won't do, to make it to the final.

3)Koreans are doing amazing, aren't they? People ruled them out of qualifying to the quarters, then of beating Brazil, then of moving through Italy. So... Yeah, I'm pretty sure they won't beat USA, but they're doing spectacular so far, it's the best korean team in quite a while, and, I don't know. All I know is for sure they're putting up a fight. And USA might miss Berg... I have no idea if she'll be ready for the semis (though actually Thompson showed quite good connection with the middles in the match vs the dominicans). I actually think both the american and korean systems are quite similar, despite USA being obviously a superior overall team. But they both rely very much on one attacker, and yet, they can get the others involved - and actually need them very much to put in practice their best performance possible, which, for instance, is different than Japan, that, pretty much, scores only with 2 attackers. USA is a great team, but if you put them in danger, it becomes very much about Hooker. That's what happened to them against Brazil starting from the 3rd set on, when Larson stopped being effective. Berg would just set Hooker and that was it, which is pretty much the idea most people have about Korea with Kim. But it's interesting to notice that in this match against Italy - and the match versus Brazil, likewise - Korea used their other attackers a lot. They still can't use all of them, cause it's such a struggle to make either Kim Hee Jin or Hwang Youn Joo make points. But I think the middles are becoming increasingly more confident - which is also improving their performance in block - and also Hang Song Yi is showing she can help Kim score, though, obviously, not as regularly. I think it's gonna be a good match to watch, but I don't expect it to be as balanced as the other semi. I mean, in order to beat USA, Korea would have to find a way to stop Hooker, which is something no one was able to achieve yet - I thought Russia was the only one left that could. So, even if they can prevent attacks from the middle and even neutralize Tom and Larson's attacks in some way, if they're not able to stop Hooker, it won't do.

Quote from aXeLbEn12

while I haven't seen/heard interview from brazil, i didn't see anything unusual from the 1st set towards the end of the game. so i don't know what all these fuss all about brazil.

if we're going to debate about brazilians' or any other teams' attitudes, perhaps we can create a new thread for it? this thread is all about the london olympics you know?

brazil won over russia
brazil celebrates
there are people who love the brazilian team
there are people who hate the brazilian team
brazil and russia hate each other

end of story

Display More

I agree with you. It is a topic to talk about the London Olympics

Quote from yates

A couple of ideas I'd like to share about Brazil's victory and the upcoming matches:

1)I think most people said that already, and I kept enphasizing that while watching the match: the very key for Russia losing, or just overall underperforming, was Russia's very poor service. While watching the match, I realized how these days none of the russian girls uses jump serves. Quite a difference situation when you campare to the great russian team that got silver medal in 2000, for instance. Brazilian reception has tons of vulnerabilities, pretty much among all three receivers. Russia never took advantage of that. Dani Lins played all 5 sets with the ball on her hands and, kudos to her, she played an excellent match. Russian block struggled A LOT. (It worked better in the end of the 3rd set, thanks to a good - maybe the only good - sequence of serves by Gamova.) Thaísa had 19 points in attack. I'm sure Brazil wouldn't have been able to take the match the fifth set if not for those very precious points, cause our OH's would struggle to score anyway. That made the whole difference. It's like Russia didn't strategize very well for the match, like didn't really believe Brazil could beat them. Brazil, on the other hand, though not being always consistent with their serve, seemed to be very tactically prepared to handle Russia's strong attacks - specially Gamova's. She suffered a lot with the good brazilian defense. And Brazil improved their defense so much, compared to the game versus US! Great match by Sokolova, as well. If this is really her last match with the russian jersey, I think she can leave proud. Gamova, though people saying she'll probably retire, I think she'll come back. Probably she's just disappointed in the result. But she's still has a lot more to give to this NT. And she might wanna take a revenge against brazilians in Brazil in 4 years. That'd be quite interesting.

For semifinals, I think:

2)Brazil vs Japan will probably be the more balanced of the semis. I see it's a mental battle for Brazil, rather than a tactical one. We've all been following Japan this tournament and we've all seen what's their approach in the match against China. They work pretty much based on position 4.That's how they score, wether if it's with Kimura or Ebata. Brazil obviously has a more sophisticated way of playing and plenty of resources to stop Japan's attacks. What's tricky is Brazil's gonna have to have a lot of patience and mental strenght - which they showed this OG in the match against Russia, but, I'm afraid, pretty much only in the match against Russia - to defeat Japan, cause they're restless defensewise, so Brazil's gonna have to attack a lot and use a lot of diversity against Japan's defense. I think Brazil can do it, specially since it seems now Dani Lins developped an unseen sense of confidence. And, sad enough, Brazil won't be able to rely on Sassá this time around. Also important to note that sometimes Brazil focus too much on a particular opponent. I think in 2010, Brazil's target was Italy, because they have been losing to them quite frequently, and they saw them as their biggest competition. Brazil studied Italy, destroyed Italy in the WCH, (25x7!), but then, in the final match, was not able to stop Gamova. Last year, in the GP, I think Brazil totally focused Russia, having losing to them the year before, and in the final match, didn't expect USA to be so strong as they were, specially since Brazil had been usually beating USA up til that point. And then USA crushed Brazil and it did again several times after. So, now, brazilians have to be very focused, cause these last couple of years, Japan showed they can totally beat them, and just this amazing victory against Russia won't do, to make it to the final.

3)Koreans are doing amazing, aren't they? People ruled them out of qualifying to the quarters, then of beating Brazil, then of moving through Italy. So... Yeah, I'm pretty sure they won't beat USA, but they're doing spectacular so far, it's the best korean team in quite a while, and, I don't know. All I know is for sure they're putting up a fight. And USA might miss Berg... I have no idea if she'll be ready for the semis (though actually Thompson showed quite good connection with the middles in the match vs the dominicans). I actually think both the american and korean systems are quite similar, despite USA being obviously a superior overall team. But they both rely very much on one attacker, and yet, they can get the others involved - and actually need them very much to put in practice their best performance possible, which, for instance, is different than Japan, that, pretty much, scores only with 2 attackers. USA is a great team, but if you put them in danger, it becomes very much about Hooker. That's what happened to them against Brazil starting from the 3rd set on, when Larson stopped being effective. Berg would just set Hooker and that was it, which is pretty much the idea most people have about Korea with Kim. But it's interesting to notice that in this match against Italy - and the match versus Brazil, likewise - Korea used their other attackers a lot. They still can't use all of them, cause it's such a struggle to make either Kim Hee Jin or Hwang Youn Joo make points. But I think the middles are becoming increasingly more confident - which is also improving their performance in block - and also Hang Song Yi is showing she can help Kim score, though, obviously, not as regularly. I think it's gonna be a good match to watch, but I don't expect it to be as balanced as the other semi. I mean, in order to beat USA, Korea would have to find a way to stop Hooker, which is something no one was able to achieve yet - I thought Russia was the only one left that could. So, even if they can prevent attacks from the middle and even neutralize Tom and Larson's attacks in some way, if they're not able to stop Hooker, it won't do.

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Kim Hee Jin is mainly used to strengthen the block on the right. If Larson is off (hopefully not), Hwang can come in. But if it is going to be Hodge, then Kim has to cover. She is MB-in training.

What a big dissapoiment Fabi. None player must talk like that.
And maybe she is not the only brazilian player who has the same feeling.

Quote from yates

A couple of ideas I'd like to share about Brazil's victory and the upcoming matches:

1)I think most people said that already, and I kept enphasizing that while watching the match: the very key for Russia losing, or just overall underperforming, was Russia's very poor service. While watching the match, I realized how these days none of the russian girls uses jump serves. Quite a difference situation when you campare to the great russian team that got silver medal in 2000, for instance. Brazilian reception has tons of vulnerabilities, pretty much among all three receivers. Russia never took advantage of that. Dani Lins played all 5 sets with the ball on her hands and, kudos to her, she played an excellent match. Russian block struggled A LOT. (It worked better in the end of the 3rd set, thanks to a good - maybe the only good - sequence of serves by Gamova.) Thaísa had 19 points in attack. I'm sure Brazil wouldn't have been able to take the match the fifth set if not for those very precious points, cause our OH's would struggle to score anyway. That made the whole difference. It's like Russia didn't strategize very well for the match, like didn't really believe Brazil could beat them. Brazil, on the other hand, though not being always consistent with their serve, seemed to be very tactically prepared to handle Russia's strong attacks - specially Gamova's. She suffered a lot with the good brazilian defense. And Brazil improved their defense so much, compared to the game versus US! Great match by Sokolova, as well. If this is really her last match with the russian jersey, I think she can leave proud. Gamova, though people saying she'll probably retire, I think she'll come back. Probably she's just disappointed in the result. But she's still has a lot more to give to this NT. And she might wanna take a revenge against brazilians in Brazil in 4 years. That'd be quite interesting.

For semifinals, I think:

2)Brazil vs Japan will probably be the more balanced of the semis. I see it's a mental battle for Brazil, rather than a tactical one. We've all been following Japan this tournament and we've all seen what's their approach in the match against China. They work pretty much based on position 4.That's how they score, wether if it's with Kimura or Ebata. Brazil obviously has a more sophisticated way of playing and plenty of resources to stop Japan's attacks. What's tricky is Brazil's gonna have to have a lot of patience and mental strenght - which they showed this OG in the match against Russia, but, I'm afraid, pretty much only in the match against Russia - to defeat Japan, cause they're restless defensewise, so Brazil's gonna have to attack a lot and use a lot of diversity against Japan's defense. I think Brazil can do it, specially since it seems now Dani Lins developped an unseen sense of confidence. And, sad enough, Brazil won't be able to rely on Sassá this time around. Also important to note that sometimes Brazil focus too much on a particular opponent. I think in 2010, Brazil's target was Italy, because they have been losing to them quite frequently, and they saw them as their biggest competition. Brazil studied Italy, destroyed Italy in the WCH, (25x7!), but then, in the final match, was not able to stop Gamova. Last year, in the GP, I think Brazil totally focused Russia, having losing to them the year before, and in the final match, didn't expect USA to be so strong as they were, specially since Brazil had been usually beating USA up til that point. And then USA crushed Brazil and it did again several times after. So, now, brazilians have to be very focused, cause these last couple of years, Japan showed they can totally beat them, and just this amazing victory against Russia won't do, to make it to the final.

3)Koreans are doing amazing, aren't they? People ruled them out of qualifying to the quarters, then of beating Brazil, then of moving through Italy. So... Yeah, I'm pretty sure they won't beat USA, but they're doing spectacular so far, it's the best korean team in quite a while, and, I don't know. All I know is for sure they're putting up a fight. And USA might miss Berg... I have no idea if she'll be ready for the semis (though actually Thompson showed quite good connection with the middles in the match vs the dominicans). I actually think both the american and korean systems are quite similar, despite USA being obviously a superior overall team. But they both rely very much on one attacker, and yet, they can get the others involved - and actually need them very much to put in practice their best performance possible, which, for instance, is different than Japan, that, pretty much, scores only with 2 attackers. USA is a great team, but if you put them in danger, it becomes very much about Hooker. That's what happened to them against Brazil starting from the 3rd set on, when Larson stopped being effective. Berg would just set Hooker and that was it, which is pretty much the idea most people have about Korea with Kim. But it's interesting to notice that in this match against Italy - and the match versus Brazil, likewise - Korea used their other attackers a lot. They still can't use all of them, cause it's such a struggle to make either Kim Hee Jin or Hwang Youn Joo make points. But I think the middles are becoming increasingly more confident - which is also improving their performance in block - and also Hang Song Yi is showing she can help Kim score, though, obviously, not as regularly. I think it's gonna be a good match to watch, but I don't expect it to be as balanced as the other semi. I mean, in order to beat USA, Korea would have to find a way to stop Hooker, which is something no one was able to achieve yet - I thought Russia was the only one left that could. So, even if they can prevent attacks from the middle and even neutralize Tom and Larson's attacks in some way, if they're not able to stop Hooker, it won't do.

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It depends on whether Hooker will have spikes full of strength.
even though Hooker spikes very high,if it was not powerful, team with good defense can save the ball
that's how Japan beat USA in World cup 3:0, they just saved many spikes from Hooker.
Of course, Korea's defense is not as good as Japan.
But i think Korea will a find to deal with it even USA is still have higher chance to win.

Quote from yates

(I think it has, and if I'm not making a mistake, it was you that posted, cause I think I've seen the bilingual version of the quote. )

I know, man, but at this point this is pointless. I'm brazilian and I don't agree with a lot of how brazilian people acts, including our players, including Zé Roberto, etc. There were some rude brazilian users that said stupid things in here before. But there are also brazilian tactful users who acted very classy. You get that there's no need to make stupid generalizations, but some people, it seems don't, for some reason. And you yourself was someone that posted something like "You're brazilian, so all you care about is winning." to some user. Why would you do that?, you know it's not true. We don't even know each other in a daily basis to make this assumption. But I'm not calling you out or anything, because I know that since you're brazilian you feel you have the right to be more autocritical about our own culture, I think a lot of us do. Doesn't mean people have to come in here and like apologize like "Sorry for us brazilians that acted poor, there's lot of them out there". Like, we get it. Other people acted poor as well, no one's trying to cover for them. People are responsible for what they say, there's no need to make it a culture thing. Some of the annoying ones get more loud, but all you have to do is stop feeding the trolls.

I see there's lots of people from different countries that dislike brazilian habits in volleyball, and though that kinda surprises me, I think there must be a reason. I very much so hate how some of players dealt with criticism these past days. And I agree with you that ZRG is not classy at all, he keeps screwing up in his interviews. But whatever, at the end of the day, you move on, no need to milk it endlessly. I think pretty much everyone made their points. It's not about volleyball anymore, so, I think we should just leave it behind. I totally get that you have the right to make your point about Zé Roberto and the players, but the thing in the forum just became out of control, with this sort of culture war. So, that's not cool. This is what I think we should leave it past us.

It seems that some the Brazilians fans think that people saying something against the Brazilian players just becasue they are Brazilian, of course not, players' behavior are clear to be seen.
Not based on their nationality.

I still am very sad for the sorry loss of my favorite team Russia. Up to now I am still affected with the sad outcome. IMO, they should have been given (and any other team for that matter) a twice - to - beat advantage for a clean slate going through the semis. Although I wasn't able to watch the game cause by the power failure (we are currently experiencing flooding here in the Phil. due to heavy rains for three straight days now) I pretty sure Gamova and the rest of the team were very sad.

Quote from andyivan

It seems that some the Brazilians fans think that people saying something against the Brazilian players just becasue they are Brazilian, of course not, players' behavior are clear to be seen.
Not based on their nationality.

Maybe you and I aren't talking about the same thing.

It's very difficult to predict the result of the upcoming game between Japan and Brazil. But it's no doubt we will see the greatest game we've never seen before. It would be like this two years ago.

Japan vs Brazil in the World Champs 2010

As a Japanese, I want Japan to win. But I really respect the Brazilian team. So I feel very lucky to be able to watch the game between the two.

Quote from Yume

It's very difficult to predict the result of the upcoming game between Japan and Brazil. But it's no doubt we will see the greatest game we've never seen before. It would be like this two years ago.

Japan vs Brazil in the World Champs 2010

As a Japanese, I want Japan to win. But I really respect the Brazilian team. So I feel very lucky to be able to watch the game between the two.

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I hope to see a good match too.

It will be a pleasure to see both teams doing their best in the court (I hope so).

Quote from yates

3)Koreans are doing amazing, aren't they? People ruled them out of qualifying to the quarters, then of beating Brazil, then of moving through Italy.

Korea's problem is that their performance is not solid. They did great against Brazil and Italy, no doubt about that, but in the end they also lost 3 matches in preliminaries. The key was that they won the right matches...I hope they'll be able to show their best performance against USA again, then we will see a balanced match, but otherwise I'd expect USA domination. If I were USA coach my strategy would be to let Kim YK just play her game and try to stop everyone else. Kim might win one set alone, but not a whole match, and the matches Korea has won so far were the ones where other players, especially Han, were effective too. Against China and Turkey, Korea lost despite Kim's performance because the others did not help her enough, and for me that will be the key today.

Good news for Turkish users! Trt-spor will broadcast Korea-USA match ! I won't search for a link insanely

http://www.trt.net.tr - On this link you can click on Trt-Spor and watch the match

I finally found time to watch 5th set of BRA-RUS and oh dear, even knowing the result it was thrilling to watch. Hats off to Sheilla, Garay, Thaisa and Dani for great performances In the first two sets of the match I did not like Lyuba's performance, but obviously she improved throughout the match, and what a shame that the match ended with two screwed receptions by her As many people already pointed out, Russia served like a team of 14 year olds, they were just trying to serve in, no pressure at all on Brazil's reception. Also Russia definitely needs better MBs. Both of them are not good attackers and not much better blockers. Several years ago I was hoping that Natalia Dianskaya (best scorer of Junior ECH 2006 where she played with Kosheleva, Startseva and Chaplina) could be the next Tishchenko, but a serious knee injury sidelined her for a long time. Last season I watched several matches of her in Severstal and she seems on a good way again, I hope she gets a chance in NT next year...Kryuchkova was not really bad, but she played many better matches over the summer too...

Anyway, now the semis are coming, and with them the questions: how much damage can Kim and her cheerleaders cause to USA? Can Brazilian block neutralize Saori and Ebata?

Quote from Matthias

Anyway, now the semis are coming, and with them the questions: how much damage can Kim and her cheerleaders cause to USA?

During pool play. I was more nervous about USA playing Korea than I was vs Brazil. I still feel that way

Quote from Yume

It's very difficult to predict the result of the upcoming game between Japan and Brazil. But it's no doubt we will see the greatest game we've never seen before. It would be like this two years ago.

Japan vs Brazil in the World Champs 2010

As a Japanese, I want Japan to win. But I really respect the Brazilian team. So I feel very lucky to be able to watch the game between the two.

Display More