2014 FIVB World League

Turkish roster for 3rd Group Finals;

Setters:

Arslan Ekşi-Yiğit Gülmezoğlu

Opposites:

Metin Toy-Ufuk Minici

OHs:

Tomi Coskoviç-Turgay Doğan-Baturalp Burak Göngör-Yasin Aydın

MBs:

Emre Batur-Emin Gök-Mustafa Koç-Faik Samed Güneş

Liberos:

Hasan Yeşilbudak-Burak Mert

Quote from Bartek

Bulgaria in the weakest Team in Division I. I hope She will be eliminated to Div. II and France will come instead.

First, France has to qualify for final four in Australia (and win this tournament). Yesterday they lost 2:3 to Argentina. If Argentina wins with 3 points on Sunday, they will go instead.

And of course, there is no automatism in relegation from second to first level. Everything depends on the grace and mercy of FIVB.
They are writing:
"The last ranked team of Pool A & B after the Intercontinental Round could be relegated if the winner of
the Final Four of Pools C, D and E can meet the promotion requirements set by the FIVB."

Germany is winning 3:0 in Japan. Kühner was forced to set, as Zimmermann had to stay in Germany.......

I think that it will depend on World Championship and the rankings after that, aside from economical and corrution reasons.

Tight battle between Cuba and China in Finals of Group 3 with victory by Cuba after tiebreak. Chinese OP Zhi Yuan got 37 points, what is a tie of record in WL with Ivan Milijkovic and Mikko Oivanen

Quote from VolleyAll

US stopped RUS in a 5-set match

Sander is world class I must say. Just WOW this little guy outclassed Russian defense

The wow goes to the US reception, which was indeed pretty phenomenal. Sander has a very impressive vertical jump but I need to say that he rarely attacked vs organized block. Lots on 1-on-1 vs Pavlov who is equally short and has never been a good blocker. Sander's pipe indeed looks good but pipe is very much a setter's work. At the same time, three or four errors in attack (including missed match-point on the empty net) could have made him an anti-hero of the game. Well, instead this spot has been booked by Ilinykh who rather stupidly put his hit wide on the match-point and then made an error in reception :).

Let us see how it goes today.

Quote from DarkHorse

I have a question to sir Stefan Antiga, when finally will play Kurek, Wlazły or Kubiak? It's really irritating watching this team when even Russia play now with their stars and they also gave them rest, but now they play the most important matches. I don't want to watch this Poland team... Many complaints of back pains, of leg pains, in world championship in Poland Kurek with Wlazły will also complain? What the f... Kubiak only has more serious injury.
Konarski - 3rd attacker, Mika, Buszek - they are from also 3rd squad of our NT.
Brazil, go to the finals, Antiga lost in his words. He promises that he will be ready with our stars on this matches.

So stop watching this freackin' team if u don't want to. Nobody pushes you to do that. Don't you think guys are going to play if they are ready for that or it's too much for u to understand? They wouldn't risk just to make you feel satisfied and happy

Quote from DarkHorse

Are you 100% sure Wlazły with Kurek have injuries? I have feeling they are scared of Iran. I'm not joking. I'm serious. I have also pain of my finger and i won't go to work today, it would be risk to take my pen and writing.
If now they are avoiding serious rivals so they will have pretty form at World Championship? Good luck.
I only feel sorry for Kubiak, great, pugnacious player who must break something to avoid the match.

You perfectly know which tournament is more important for Poland. So judge afterwards, not now, when things are in preparations.

Max Holt reminds me of Macaulay Culkin

Russian crowd blinding US servers with laser beams lol

Congrat Turkey and good luck for the final match!

The journey of USA has been seemingly too smooth to be true. The fact is a bunch of teams are not taking this event seriously, while USA basically revealed all their weapons. I totally believe three months is enough for outstanding coaches to find means of dealing with Sander. By that time it's hard to tell where USA stands on the WCH.

I don't understand Antiga at all at this stage. Poland needs 7 points to clinch a position in the finals, otherwise they have to hope Italy do them a favor. Although since Poland didn't do well on last year's WL, the world ranking won't be affected too much. What I concern the most is how Antiga would use Wlazly, Kurek and Wisniewski because apparently Konarski, Buszek and Klos/Wrona/even Nowakowski have been performing rather underwhelmingly.

RUS crashed USA in 3 sets

Sander committed the last 4 crucial error points, too bad. RUS showed its true champion form

Quote from VolleyAll

RUS crashed USA in 3 sets

Sander committed the last 4 crucial error points, too bad. RUS showed its true champion form

Amounts of errors say us everything - USA 24, while Russia only 10

The ony difference between Russia and USA were the mistakes, point by point performance is equal. I think you should fear that team in the future, they are the only ones who could possibly stop Muserskiy.

Clinching berths into the Group 1 Finals

Group A
Italy - clinched as host
Iran - 2 points get them to 18, Brazil can only get to 17 with 2 wins (3-0)
Poland - 6 points, 2 wins (3-0, 3-1) all but gets them in depending on set-ratio, currently ahead
Brazil - 6 points, 2 wins (3-0, 3-1) plus a Poland 5 set win or or any loss, or 2 Iran losses (not 5 sets, 1 5 set loss is okay)

Group B
USA - 3 points gets them to 24, but any loss by Serbia gets them in the tournament.
Russia - 6 points gets them to 24, but any loss by Serbia drops that number by 2 (5 set loss) or 3
Serbia - 9 points gets them to 23, but any loss means the maximum they can reach is 20 or 21. Russia won need to lose in both their matches or lose 1 match in 5 sets (if 21 points) in that scenario, take the victories tie breaker (7-6)

Clinching berths into the Group 2 Finals
Group C
Belgium - 1 point in their two matches
Canada - 6 points and Belgium lose both matches in 3-0 or 3-1. Canada win tie break with victories (8-7)

Group D
France -1 point, must win 2 sets to guarantee 28 points
Argentina - 3 points, cannot have France win 2 sets

Group E
Netherlands - 5 points, must win 1 match in 3 or 4 sets, and win 1 match in 5 sets
Portugal - 6 points gets them to 22 points, Netherlands must lose 1 match in 3 or 4 sets to have this chance, cannot finish on even points with Netherlands or Czech Republic as they lose both victories tie breakers
Czech Republic - 5 points gets them to 21 points, Must beat Netherlands in both matches in 3 or 4 sets, Portugal must win one match in 5 sets (max 21 points) or lose one match in 5 sets (max 20 points) Czech would take victories tie breaker (8-7) with one Portugal 5 set win (if they win both matches)

wow what a second set!! 39-37 China....its 1-1 now..

Luckily, Laola uploaded the semis in Bursa. Perhaps they will upload the final day as well. It would be nice if they show the Final Four in Australia, too, so that we watch most of the teams, not only those in the top two pools.

Quote from Martee

The journey of USA has been seemingly too smooth to be true. The fact is a bunch of teams are not taking this event seriously, while USA basically revealed all their weapons. I totally believe three months is enough for outstanding coaches to find means of dealing with Sander. By that time it's hard to tell where USA stands on the WCH.

This is not the Team A of USA but most likely this will be come World Championships. They are showing their weapons mainly because they don't have a deep bench. Their youngsters have very few professional experience and they will need it all for the top tournament later this year. I understand the coach is trying to fix the team chemistry, reception, and errors. So far only Sander and Christensen have shown world class skill, the rest of the NCAA hopefuls were bad to mediocre.

France is leading 2-0 (25-21 25-22) so team has already qualified to WL Group 2 Finals in Australia