2013 FIVB World Grand Prix

    According to me, Russia : 9 points for sure
    Don't let you impress by GER/POL ...


    It really doesn't make sense to play against CHN, JPN, BRA and USA in order to prepare for ECH. Thus, I hope we won't make it to the finals or send there our subs, which I doubt Barbolini would do. WGP is so tiring with all group phases, moreover, there is an extra week between last phase of groups and final round. :down:

    Quoted from "Matthias"
    Looks like Italy doesn't want to go to final round: Mencarelli travels back to Italy and takes Signorile, Costagrande, Guiggi and Arrighetti with him, Tofoli will guide the team to 3rd week and Caracuta and Bertone will join the team.


    I don't agree to Mencarelli's strategy: Italy is now in good position to reach the WGP finals, it has a 2-points advantage over Turkey (it means ITA can afford to lose 2-3 the match against the Turks with no harm, since they will get a final score of 22 pts.-enough to qualify. ** NB: of course you have to win 6 pts against ALG and DOM, but it is a task both ITA and TK can accomplish).

    So, why would you spoil this opportunity ? I would remind mencarelli that: 2 years ago the newly-assembled ITA male NT, coached by Berruto, played the World League finals and then won the silver medal in 2011 ECH. You gain experience through playing, not only through gym training...
    :what:

    Quote from ravens#7

    I'm really worried a weak team like Italy is on top just because they faced only weakest teams in tournaments. They best team they played is Russia and of course they lost. I would really like to know how they made the pools... :down: :whistle:

    They have weird ranking system depending on the results of very strange competitions. Serbia (world ranking 9) faces two decent teams. USA (wr 1) faces four. Looks like the organisers tried to bring Japan, China, Brasil, Italy and Serbia into the finals. US and Poland had the worst draws possible.

    just watched a little bit of the RUS-CUB match. my goodness, the cubans are just a disaster. can this team even beat PR at this point? honduras? maybe uruguay?


    they did take a set from the russians though... giel and palacio must feel very lonely, they are 2 of the veterans who still seem to know what they are doing. melissa vargas, 14.y.o., is amazing, she shows flashes of brilliance and then makes the dumbest mistakes. but she's not the only one that makes the worst mistakes, lots of the other cubans do too. interesting, they are experimenting with 5-1. and why is lescay such a screamer?

    i agree about wgp pools sometimes the pools are just silly easy take italy (they almost allways have easier pools then the rest)or turkey last year and this year serbia they should make it so top teams actually meet before wgp finals and about finals they should just take away final rights if u host it u are automaticllly qualified u should earn your spot for finalls and not get it just by hosting the event that is my 2 cents

    Quote from powsoff

    Looked tired generally. Surprisingly, DOM beat them playing some very straightforward volleyball, i.e. attacks on three blocks etc. I don't like the BUL libero today too.


    No wonder, after two consecutive travels with many thousands km. Next travel is 14000km and some teams don't move from home. Ingenious :obey:

    please give me full match japan vs kazakhstan

    What's wrong with reception statistics of WGP? Both Vsileva and Rabadzhieva are at top 4 best receiver of tournament :what:

    Quote from serdar

    What's wrong with reception statistics of WGP? Both Vsileva and Rabadzhieva are at top 4 best receiver of tournament :what:

    Some stats aren't reliable, look these from Płock, reception there few times had note 0.00 or could have been below 0 :!:

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

    Some of the way statistics are gathered are very inconsistent. Sometimes the digs in one country are really high, while the dig receptions are low. Then it is the opposite in other locations. What about in Cuba, where non Cuban teams would get lower excellents and digs compared to the home team?


    The FIVB does not make this easy for fans to understand because we know the following.


    Kills, blocks, aces and errors.


    After that digs appear straight forward, but what is a dig reception? Do we care about running sets? What is the difference between excellents for serve reception and a regular one?


    Plus don't even get me started with red cards as a team violation. In basketball, there is a category at the bottom of the statistics page for technical fouls, but there is not one in volleyball on the FIVB sheets P-2 or P-3? A player or coach got the card, allocate it to that player in the statistics. Who got the touching the net violation (which player hits it the most)? 4 hits, that is a team violation.

    Quote from brahmin

    Plus don't even get me started with red cards as a team violation. In basketball, there is a category at the bottom of the statistics page for technical fouls, but there is not one in volleyball on the FIVB sheets P-2 or P-3? A player or coach got the card, allocate it to that player in the statistics. Who got the touching the net violation (which player hits it the most)? 4 hits, that is a team violation.

    Red cards happen so seldom in Volleyball, I don't think it's worth mentioning that in the stats sheet. And about net touches, as far as I know they're usually simply counted as point for the attacker (or error when it was the attacker who touched the net).

    Stefana is back to the team :win: . She will travel with the team to China. As you know, Nikolic is probably out for the rest of the NT season :S
    I must say I thought before the start of NT season Brankica is not good enough yet to replace Nikolic as attacking OH in starting six, but she proved that I was wrong. She progressed sooo much both in attack and reception. If Nikolic was 100% ready I still think Brankica is better. She has been great add to our team! IMO, she has been our best player during WGP so far


    Following team travels to China
    S: Maja Ognjenovic, Bojana Zivkovic
    OPP: Jovana Brakocevic, Ana Bjelica
    MB: Milena Rasic, Natasa Krsmanovic, Nadja Ninkovic, Stefana Veljkovic
    OH: Brankica Mihajlovic, Brizitka Molnar, Tijana Malesevic, Sanja Malagurski
    L: Suzana Cebic, Jasna Majstorovic

    Thanks, Sheilla13!


    Here is China's roster for Week 3:


    Setters: Shen Jingsi, Yao Di, Mi Yang
    OHs: Zhu Ting, Hui Ruoqi, Yin Na, Liu Yanhan
    MBs: Xu Yunli, Yang Junjing, Liu Congcong
    Ops: Zeng Chunlei, Liu Dan
    Liberos: Shan Danna, Zhang Xian


    Happy for Stefana is back :rose: ^^
    and I'd like to see Malagurski playing against ARG and maybe POL :thumbup:

    I still wish Zhen Chan could be the main libero in the final round.

    My favourite roster of Chinese (in 2022)
    male NT:
    S - Yu Yao-chen, Chen Lei-yang
    OP - Jiang Chuan, Dai Qing-yao
    OH - Zhang Jing-yin, Yu Yuan-tai, Liu Li-bin, Fu Hou-wen
    MB - Zhang Zhe-jia, Peng Shi-kun, Li Yong-zhen, Jiang Zhen-yang
    L - Yang Yi-ming, Yang Tian-yuan


    female NT:
    S - Yao Di, Diao Lin-yu
    OP - Gong Xiang-yu, Sun Xiao-xuan
    OH - Li Ying-ying, Wang Yi-fan, Wu Meng-jie, Zhuang Yu-shan
    MB - Yuan Xin-yue, Wang Yuan-yuan, Zheng Yi-xin, Liu Yu
    L - Ni Fei-fan, Xu Jia-nan


    Yimei is out of 12 :white:

    I'm so HAPPY to see Stefana on the roster :super: :heart: I hope she will play as much as she can without any injuries.