European Championships 2015 - hosts Italy and Bulgaria

    So all this crap for loosing 0:3 again? Great, thank you for nothing. The only good thing is that i didn't have to see this debacle :obey:


    For my part, i not only blame Heynen, the players had their fare share in this messed up tournament. Heynen is not a coach who orders something on the players so they shouldn't hide behind the coach. The shanked match against the Netherlands was clearly a team decision, so they should get their deserved beating all together :teach:


    But anyway, big congrats to Bulgaria. I hope they can still squeeze at least one further good match out of the team. :super:

    First, I have to congratulate Slovenia. Truly. I had a feeling as if they were playing the match of their life. Normally, in some moment, one of the players would choke for amen, it happens to teams which don't have a full house on bench. But they were like a machine, everything just worked for them. I saw our guys were exhausted, from the beginning of this tournament nothing worked good. For sure we still have this WC in our heads as well. But no one can take away from Slovenians this victory which they achieved mostly by their solid work.


    Second, I have really no one to blame after this defeat. I feel that it was like everything that guys could actually do. Normally I would say sth like "Nowakowski fuc*ed a momentum" but how in world I could if he wasn't even on court most of the time? Somehow, I can't even ease myself if I can't find a guilty one and, being totally ironic and mean, blame it on him. I only hope Kubiak won't again blame himself. First, after this WC. And now... he gave our team a match ball, placing the ball between the opponent's hands and the net. Then he was blocked and it were Slovenians who had match ball... Generally, he said, we had an awful year, we won nothing. I know he is strong but right now I can feel how much he is broken, as well as all of the guys :S


    Third, I hope it was really last time I've ever seen Konarski in white-red jersey. I know, I just wrote that I can't blame anyone. I don't blame him. Honestly, I already lost all of my hope long time ago, a hope that in some moment he'll rescue the team or sth. After WC Kadziewicz said: "If Konarski went to Japan on holidays, he might as well pay for it himself and pick a nicer place". And he was damn right. In Japan Antiga didn't try him at all. Today he tried and the guy proved again he just can't give Kurek a break. Kurek has no break having such a back-up. Which means that eliminating Kurek is eliminating one of our players at all and we can play in 5 with the same result. Clear message for the whole world. Let's hope the same clear for Antiga after this whole season long.


    Fourth, HUGE congratulations for Bulgarians. I've never stoped believing that guys have chances against Germans. Well, here you are and here is all the tactics Heynen ever commited ;) I don't want to be bitter, I still like German team and in some way Heynen's weirdness as well, but it just makes me wonder if sth came through Heynen's mind after this defeat. Sth like, you know, very in shape of "we could beat Poland so easily"...


    Fifth, I'm putting my pink glasses on now and I'm seeing the final Bulgaria - Slovenia through them 8) And please, don't criticize me, guys, call stupid, anything... Some dreams are ruined, some other are formed. If we assumed that Italians are already mentally in the final, Slovenia can surprise them very much. If we assumed that France has its ups and downs and Bulgaria is, well... Bulgaria :D and plays home - anything can happened.

    I had a match to play so I couldn't watch Italy vs Russia, but let me just say... Thanks guys <3


    I don't care if Russia played the worst match of their life, I don't care if they were tired because of the WC, I don't care if Italy until now played well only the first two sets vs France: I don't care nothing except beating 3-0 Russia again in less than a month and taking the semifinal :)


    ps does someone have a link for the match? :heart: (not laola neither rai)



    Quote from bella

    If we assumed that Italians are already mentally in the final, Slovenia can surprise them very much


    I'm sure Italy won't underestimate nobody, actually it's a while they don't, imho. I think we are perfectly aware that we need to play well to win this ;)
    Of course that doesn't mean that Slovenia can't surprise us!

    Quote from Kk15

    Quoted from "bella"
    If we assumed that Italians are already mentally in the final, Slovenia can surprise them very much



    I'm sure Italy won't underestimate nobody, actually it's a while they don't, imho. I think we are perfectly aware that we need to play well to win this
    Of course that doesn't mean that Slovenia can't surprise us!


    I agree.. I don't think Italy will underestimate Slovenia... We're in the semifinals of ECH so playing a match without preparing it well would be such a stupid thing. We know Cebulj, Gasparini and Urnaut very well as they played for years in Italy, the guys has to concentrate as they did with Russia. Their condition is still good enough, hope they can make it through!

    Quote from Diesse14

    We know Cebulj, Gasparini and Urnaut very well as they played for years in Italy,


    And we know that Giani knows us quite well! It's gonna be emotional for him playing vs Italy :heart:


    BTW, I realized that saturday two men of Berruto staff will face against each other... Interesting!

    A very important psychological win for Bulgaria, dedicated to Niki Penchev and his stepfather. It wasn't a perfect evening for our team, but I told you Germany can't perform at the level they had expected. It was enough to get the job done and I am surely delighted they repeated the score. Against the quick French team I would rest Teodor Todorov and play with Niki Nikolov instead, but his health condition remains a mystery. The only positive thing is Todorov will have two more days to recover and prepare for the match. Plamen seemed very critical to Georgi Bratoev, quite rightfully so, at the end of the third set, Agontsev couldn't help either, we were a bit lucky Germany could produce nothing out of it.


    Deeply inside, I still believe Bulgaria can pull out a rabbit out of the hat and cause some major upset at home, but realistically speaking, the semifinal is quite a success already. Perhaps it would be the bronze medal position that would suit this team best on those conditions, but I would not make predictions. The French team is the N1 favourite for the trophy now, but in this hall with these people cheering we stand a chance.


    I wanted to write a few things about the match of Slovenia. Extremely patient, well-prepared, and motivated Slovenians took what they fully deserved yesterday. This is exactly the breakthrough I talked about which they had never achieved. Brilliant performance by Urnaut and Cebulj. On the other hand, Poland really didn't seem like a team who had come to win medals. I guess you are all right and they were way too tired, who knows. I never understood Antiga who kept on playing with Mika yesterday, he was horrible. Very few helpful actions from him, I think his overall contribution yesterday was rather negative than neutral. I remember we had a discussion about his game right after the WCH, so far it seems like I was more right than wrong about him, but it is of no relevance right now.





    Quote from B. Moreira

    This Bulgaria is just a regular team, nothing special. IMO it's a big failure to lose like they did today.


    I dont think France will have any difficult against Bulgaria (without all the injured players, i think be in semi is a great result for Bulgaria).


    Yes, yes, please go on, keep it coming! The last man to say something like this or to think in such a direction is now somewhere at the Sofia airport on his way to Germany :P

    Can't wait to watch full arena in Bulgaria, our NT TV is again broadcasting semifinals and finals :thumbsup: :woohoo:

    Ok, I watch the replay of Italy-Russia this morning (except the first half of the second set, because Rai didn't show it). --> still looking for the match if someone has it :D


    First of all, I was excited as I didn't know how the match was ended! What's the problem with me? xD


    Second, finally Italian fans showed what they can do. Thanks, you were amazing!! 8o
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANwNFhf553w


    Third, I loved, loved, loved this Italy. What a consistent match! How many defenses, block touches, strong serves, counter-attack, good set by everyone from the end of the court! What an attitude! That's what I was looking for, guys! That's what it means playing as a team! :white: :obey: :cheesy:
    Thanks God Russia doesn't serve float :whistle: :P


    Fourth, having read your posts I was honestly expecting a worst Russia. I mean, they did a lot of errors, but also good thing, and overall I think it's more an Italian credits than a Russia demerit (but probably this impression is the consequences of my excitement for the Italian match ^^ ).
    If we hadn't played that well Russia wouldn't have had so much pressure, and the pressure leaded to the mistakes (especially to the spike mistakes, imho). The spikes out weren't silly distraction errors, they were the result of the desperate need of putting the hell ball down. That's not that truth for the net fault (these were mainly a lack of attention) and the serve errors (we know that the serve can work perfectly one match and awful another).
    But overall they received (even better than us, and we didn't go easy on them), defended and served quite strong (not considering the already quoted mistakes).
    It's clear it wasn't they'r best match, but I really don't think it was their worst. I mean, they didn't do silly mistakes (like two players watching each others waiting for the other to save an easy ball, and the ball is on the floor), they do 'normal' mistakes, if you understand what I mean.
    Curiously, they did more blocks than us, but we fouled too often their triple block and we touched a lot of balls, so I don't think Russia blocked better than us.
    Obviously I agree on Musersky – very inconsistent, exept at the end of the third set.



    Stats:
    Russia vs Italy


    Attacks: 75 vs 54 (I always thought they counted only the spikes that directly leads to a point, but I guess I was wrong, since Russia didn't scored 75 points for sure)
    Aces: 5 vs 4
    Block: 7 vs 3
    Errors: 32 vs 14 :!:

    Quote from YavorD


    Yes, yes, please go on, keep it coming! The last man to say something like this or to think in such a direction is now somewhere at the Sofia airport on his way to Germany :P

    :rolll:


    France is in a great moment, so i really think that they will not have difficulty to win the game against Bulgaria, under normal conditions. But i thought Germany would win it too, so my opinion is not so good :rolll:


    But at least i hope we can see 2 good games saturday.


    Bulgaria have their fans, and this could be good or bad for them, depending how they will play.


    I'm a little bit afraid if Slovenia will fell like they have archieved something big and fell fully satisfied.


    They have experienced players, like Gasparini, Urnaut, Vincic Sket and Pajenk. Cebulj is young but he plays for some years in Italy. But at the same time i don't think they have experience in games like this. I can only remember Gasparini who played a F4 in champions league. Vincic/Pajenk/Sket played F4 but they were too young without responsability.


    Volleyball is not a sport with unexpected results, so it's too nice when we see a team like Slovenia in semifinal. The same thing happened to France in WL this year.




    A final France and Slovenia would be perfect to me :drink:


    Let's see how FIVB will react, because untill now Slovenia is out of WL 2016(ok, they said that they will play later, but this situation is a little bit weird to me).

    Quote from B. Moreira

    The same thing happened to France in WL this year.


    In the WL France had better chances than Slovenia now, imho. They had already proved during the WCH that they can play very well.



    I forgot to add two thing earlier.


    One, a journalist asked Ivan if this was his best match with the NT. I was kinda surprised, because I think he had better matches, even if right now I'm not capable of suggesting a specific one. What do you think?


    Two (and this is something I thinks since the WC), it's impressive how the Italian NT – that in the two competition pre WC (WCH and WL) reached for different reason his bottom – pays so much respect for Giannelli, the youngest and less experienced of the team (and of the whole ECH, actually!). I think this is the first strength of this guy.



    About Bulgaria...
    I haven't watched a single match of the two Bulgarian pools (laola is blocked in Italy and Rai showed only the Italian matches), but I'm not a huge fan of the team, actually (even if I like several players). On the other hand, I really enjoy France, so I'm cheering for them. I guess the fans can help Bulgaria, but overall I guess that France is the one that will decide the match: if they'll play at their best, they'll probably win; if they aren't focused, it can be a different story.

    Quote from vabo

    Now with Slovenia and Bulgaria rising to the top of dark horse material, the Olympic qualification in Berlin gets even more and more juicy :box:


    Does Slovenia still has a chance to take part at all? On first view (http://www.cev.lu/Rankings/Men.aspx) it looks like a tight battle between Slovakia/Belgium/Slovenia for the last available spot.


    Kondzio, we need you for clarification :sos: 8)


    Why do you have so many negatives about Bulgarian NT ? Why not Bulgaria to play in the final against Slovenia ? Bulgaria has beaten many times France and i think that we are completely capable to do it again. Why so much ignorance of Bulgaria ?

    Quote from deian1302

    Why do you have so many negatives about Bulgarian NT. Why not Bulgaria to play in the final against Slovenia. Bulgaria has beaten many times France and i think that we are completely capable to do it again. Why so much ignoration of Bulgaria ?



    I think it may be a matter of preference, they don't really have much against Bulgaria, I presume. There are many people who enjoy watching our NT and have said nothing so far. I guess it all comes to those who are online more regularly nowdays :) I'd rather let the players do the talking. We've read a lot of trash talk in this forum already, many of the users, and their predictions to be even more precise, have been proven wrong. Technically, based on shape and recent problems, they might all be right to consider Bulgaria an underdog, but this is so much better for us and the team itself. We see that even experts, coaches, and staff members didn't put us among the favourites, even as of today they don't, so it will reflect on the NT as well. And there is no better opportunity or scenario for a team like ours to be the underdog.


    The ignorance probably comes for the lack of trophies and we've had this discussion multiple times. I don't want to start it here again. It is what it is. We are among the four best teams in Europe again, we are playing at home and we should enjoy it. These are the facts and everything else is irrelevant. Or a matter of preference.

    Quote from Kk15

    France :lol: How not to love them :heart:


    For my part this is actually quite easy. Overall, i think there is a little lack of humility and respect surrounding this team, especially embodied by N'gapeth, which would leave me with a little hidden smile once they fail.


    For pure volleyball reasons they have my highest respect for their exciting display of volleyball. There is no doubt about it. But still, i can't help myself from wishing their counterparts "good luck"......


    Quote from Noncommittal

    Belgium has taken the place. Slovenia can not qualified in every situation.


    Thanks for that info :thumbup: