Friendly NT Matches

    When everyone were posting post it was fine.


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    Italy is now crushing Serbia.

    From what I watched (about half of both matches) I'd say that Serbia plays pretty much as expected, but Italy has been extremely unimpressive :| In my mind I see Lo Bianco sitting somewhere crying silent tears watching her successors, Malinov is simply terrible and Orro hasn't been an improvement either. IMO Mazzanti is putting too much emphasis on the quick style of play which is very nice to watch when it works, but also very fragile and dependant on precision which right now isn't there.

    Quote from mdacs

    I might be wrong but I doubt Italy and Serbia can beat USA and China in like 20 days or so (?). Players are visibly unprepared after this long absence.

    Last time at the Olympics both gold medals were won by teams that finished 4th during a group stage, so I wouldn't overreact about friendly games 2 weeks before a tournament.

    do you know if italy and serbia gonna play other games before olympics?

    Quote from Realista

    Last time at the Olympics both gold medals were won by teams that finished 4th during a group stage, so I wouldn't overreact about friendly games 2 weeks before a tournament.

    This is not my point. There's a difference between playing poorly vs not being at your best game rhythm. I think it is hard to recover from the latter, so that's why I disagree with these teams strategy of skipping the VNL. But I wish Italy and Serbia the best of luck - I really like both teams and hope they can reach their peak in the OGs.

    I guess the logic of Italian team (I don't know a schedule of Serbia) says that the team has 9-10 matches in a month (four-five sparings and a group stage) to get into a proper rhythm before a crucial QF. But I won't discuss with your point further because simply we've never had similar schedule during NT competition (a year of break, bubble'd VNL ;]), so it's really hard to draw an analogy, obviously you may be right in your views. I thought you make some conclusions based on those two games we've seen, and I definitely wouldn't do so.

    Italy right now looks more or less the same as when they played the US and China in WCH 2018. They were fairly limited and sloppy back then, only merely defeated Japan in a grueling 5-set game in the semis, yet still cruised through both USA and China earlier in the tournament thanks to Egonu being an overwhelming, unstoppable force. I am assuming that Italy will be fairly out-of-rythm, sloppy and just generally not all too impressive this time around as well, but although this occurs, both USA and China won´t necessarily stand much of a chance to cope with them anyway. If Egonu is on her heyday, all other actors become pure supernumerary extras, or irrelevant trivia with regard to the fixation of the outcome, and the spaghettis are likely to prevail in spite of their frankly flagrant limations as a collective unit.

    Everyone wants to finish fourth in Pool B anyway. :gone:

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    I fell that some people are still in WCH 2018 final. That time, Italy had not only Egonu, but also had Sylla in great shape and Malinov setting amazingly well, apart from Lucia Bosetti taking care of serve reception and defense. Serbia had not only Boskovic, but Mihajlovic playing superb and an excellent MB (Rasic + Veljkovic), plus Maja setting wonders.


    But now, 3 years later, the situation is different: Sylla is not in her best shape, Malinov is suffering to put a good performance on setting. In Serbia, Mihajlovic is not in her previous level, Veljkovic is not pairing with Rasic and even Maja has dropped a bit.


    I'm not saying that these teams can't improve in the Olympics and end up going to the finals. The strategy of both Mazzanti and Terzic is clear: get gameplay and teamwork during the Games. Will it work? We don't know. But such poor performances of both teams in these 2 friendly games, with only their main pieces showing high level is worrisome...

    Oh God can’t wait for Olympic. Both Serbia and Italy are gone perform great and especially Italy.

    In this matches you can’t see fire in their eyes. This are TRAINING matches. And great two teams fighting and trying to fix their weaknest.


    But you can have your hopes. I only see China as dangerous one.


    Egonu with not so good performance in first two sets and again 57% in attack:gone::gone:.


    Italy only today showed progress from the last match. They need to fix little bit block-defence, to have Egonu in full beast mode.


    C.Bosetti is playing great, She is perfect replacemnt for her sister.


    Plus Italy have two great MB on the bench to replace Christina, who can perform better than her.

    And If you would watched friendly matches example:

    Italy against Germany, Russia etc.

    Serbia against Dutch, Poland etc.


    I wanted to put other NT but attack would be to big :rolll:


    All of you would be amazed how powerfull this teams looks like against weaker teams :whistle:

    Croatia?

    Quote from Realista

    I thought you make some conclusions based on those two games we've seen, and I definitely wouldn't do so.

    I’m sorry if that’s how it came across, it wasn’t a conclusion or some sort of statement that this will necessarily happen. As I said in the beginning, I might be wrong.


    Here I’m just guessing they can’t beat China and USA because both teams improved a lot during VNL, and I don’t think neither Serbia or Italy have much room to grow playing against each other or against Korea. But again, just guessing based on the poor game they’ve played and the high number of dumb mistakes from both sides.


    I think Serbia is in a better situation because they can gain more rhythm playing against weaker teams from their pool, but Italy will face stronger teams. But we’ll see, and hopefully they’ll perform well.

    Yeah, I see your point now, mdacs, certainly there's a possibility that not playing in VNL was an enormous mistake, and you're correct with those predictions.


    I kind of agree with crovolley as well tho: if this was random VNL game against some mediocre opponents like Dutch youngsters or Poland (:mad:), Serbia and Italy would have won comfortably with Egonu and Boskovic in a shape good enough to score over 30 points on great efficiency, and we probably wouldn't over-analyze some random games as well. So all things considered, maybe we're too critical about those two games, although it's really hard to disagree that both teams underperformed on several levels.


    But I'd lie if I say that I am comfortable with a plan for Olympics prepared by Italian federation. In case of a male team, it turned out to be really helpful (young players got some decent experience and created really nice team for a future really quickly, and older players got some decent rest), but I don't think the same can be said about a female team: 2nd team played mostly really poor vball, and it's not like a 1st team is too old to play VNL like USA or Brazil, or at least like China. But it can't be changed, so it is a guessing game now whether it will be negative or not, we'll see. It is much more understandable in case of Serbian team that they went this road tbh for me, with older team, Terzic as a really experienced coach, and without having VNL at home, and, like mdacs already said, with an Olympic group weak enough not to care that much about a shape for GS of a tournament.