2018 FIVB World Championship - Japan

    I think Bjelica was doing just fine.... We just don't know how much of an act her performance against Japan and NED was. Remember that last year's Grand Prix they played without Boskovic and with Bjelica and Malagurski they finished preliminary round 7-2 ..a loss for Brazil and Japan only.


    Li Yingying was amazing last time. I love how ☺ she is.


    I think Terzic is making a mistake having Busa in the starting line. I can't even count how many times she's been aced or had a overpass. It must be around 20 already... And I'm not exaggerating. And of course she won't hold on to the pressure. He should have Malesevic in there... And I would even consider putting Pusic as OH and Aleksi as libero..is not like these 2 ever score anyways.Pusic in there to pass would help a lot. Both Busa and Malesevic are worrying me a lot.


    Maybe Terzic has a thing for Busa... 😇


    I find it so sexy how Terzic blow us a kiss after he's introduced every time. 🤗

    I don't like this approach, but I think, I should point out, that Italy will very likely defeat Japan in second pool match and than there will be no immediate need for Terzic' group, to play seriously against Italy. So they might give the match easily away to Italy, giving them no clue to their true potential on the court and resting some players (again). They will fully concentrate on the semi afterwards...

    By the way, I think, "sleeping Dragon" would be a nice name for Zhu Ting - though it might sound a little strange for most people, this is a great honour in China to be called. And it fits to her approach, to play the best and absolutely outstanding when it matters the most.

    Quote from StefanS

    I don't like this approach, but I think, I should point out, that Italy will very likely defeat Japan in second pool match and than there will be no immediate need for Terzic' group, to play seriously against Italy. So they might give the match easily away to Italy, giving them no clue to their true potential on the court and resting some players (again). They will fully concentrate on the semi afterwards...

    maybe... But Serbia probably would prefer to face USA in the semis and not China based on the WC and OG results.

    Quote from ossubtus

    the risk with that is then they'll likely get CHN in semis rather than US. maybe it makes no difference to them...

    But I think, this is the typical Terzic approach - optimzing resources and only go to full throttle, if necessary.

    If NED and Italy win tomorrow we'll already know all semifinalists and the last matches will be totally pointless. It will be the same as in men's WCH where we had friendly matches with bench players in the last pool matches of F6. ITA-SRB play first, so it will be China to decide whether they'll want to finish first and play against whoever loses ITA-SRB in the semifinal or if they'll rather hand the match over to the Dutch and play against the pool winner, but then also the Dutch might not want to win their pool depending on the result of ITA-SRB. This competition formula just sucks, IMO we need to return to having normal quarterfinals after 2nd round with crossed pairs, i.e. 1E vs 4F etc. It would make the 2nd round more interesting because four teams would pass instead of three and the ranking would be more important in order to get an easier opponent in QF. Would be less matches overall (well, actually only one per team...) but IMO a better solution than this F6 thing.

    Quote from Matthias

    If NED and Italy win tomorrow we'll already know all semifinalists and the last matches will be totally pointless. It will be the same as in men's WCH where we had friendly matches with bench players in the last pool matches of F6. ITA-SRB play first, so it will be China to decide whether they'll want to finish first and play against whoever loses ITA-SRB in the semifinal or if they'll rather hand the match over to the Dutch and play against the pool winner, but then also the Dutch might not want to win their pool depending on the result of ITA-SRB. This competition formula just sucks, IMO we need to return to having normal quarterfinals after 2nd round with crossed pairs, i.e. 1E vs 4F etc. It would make the 2nd round more interesting because four teams would pass instead of three and the ranking would be more important in order to get an easier opponent in QF. Would be less matches overall (well, actually only one per team...) but IMO a better solution than this F6 thing.

    I agree (even if the convoluted mess is cooked up only to try and get Japan farther along).


    This naive volleyball 'spectator' has had his innocence shattered by these shenanigans--call it optimizing resources or throwing a match. I can't believe it, especially reading the FIVB re-caps ... as if

    Quote from Matthias

    If NED and Italy win tomorrow we'll already know all semifinalists and the last matches will be totally pointless. It will be the same as in men's WCH where we had friendly matches with bench players in the last pool matches of F6. ITA-SRB play first, so it will be China to decide whether they'll want to finish first and play against whoever loses ITA-SRB in the semifinal or if they'll rather hand the match over to the Dutch and play against the pool winner, but then also the Dutch might not want to win their pool depending on the result of ITA-SRB. This competition formula just sucks, IMO we need to return to having normal quarterfinals after 2nd round with crossed pairs, i.e. 1E vs 4F etc. It would make the 2nd round more interesting because four teams would pass instead of three and the ranking would be more important in order to get an easier opponent in QF. Would be less matches overall (well, actually only one per team...) but IMO a better solution than this F6 thing.

    Yeah, I'm not a fan of the F6 either. Even when it's most interesting it just means that each team has won 1 match and lost 1 match and it seems kind of unfair to eliminate a team based only on that. QFs are much better for all the reasons you listed.

    F6 is a terrible idea, obviously, but we didn't have QFs in the previous format either. The top two in the 2nd stage pool went directly to the semis.

    The last time there were QFs was in 2002, but back then the second stage consisted of three pools of four teams, so the best ranked 3rd team also qualified for the QFs, which IMO wasn't an optimal solution either.


    I don't know why the FIVB constantly refuses to go with the most logical and straightforward formula - top 4 in the 2nd stage pools -> QF.

    Quote from JoanaBG

    I don't know why the FIVB constantly refuses to go with the most logical and straightforward formula - top 4 in the 2nd stage pools -> QF.

    Maybe they just want it to be more different from the Olympics. I mean, I don't think that is a good reason at all, but it's the only reason I can think of.

    The Japanese team didn't played a bad game today but Boskovic and Mihajlovic are just too much power to handle for any team, not only Japan.

    I don't know if Rasic is still one of top three MBs in the world but one thing is sure for me, her level dropped this season with Vakif and now with Serbia, she is not the same player as she was two years ago.

    I really like S.Popovic, she must be the most underrated player in this team. Unfortunately no one will notice your efforts as a libero when you are playing on the same side of the court with Boskovic, Mihajlovic, Maja, Rasic and Veljkovic.

    I have two big question marks on Serbia though. They didn't face any challenge and a team that put them under pressure in this whole tournament, are they ready for China, Italy and the US? The 2nd OH is clearly the weakest position, is Busa good enough to beat the top three teams mentioned earlier and eventually win the trophy?

    I think we will know the answers after Serbia - Italy match.

    Quote from Grey

    I don't know if Rasic is still one of top three MBs in the world but one thing is sure for me, her level dropped this season with Vakif and now with Serbia, she is not the same player as she was two years ago.

    She sure didn't have as good a season in Vakif as she usually does and she was not good today, but she has generally done well in this tournament so far. I know Serbia haven't played the best teams yet, but she did play well against BRA and DOM for example.

    Yeah, I thought she was doing more than fine at this tournament, until today where all MBs were off for some reason. Also, remember that first set against Kazakhstan when she scored 11 points! Yes, it's only KAZ, but still impressive numbers for a MB.

    Quote from JoanaBG

    F6 is a terrible idea, obviously, but we didn't have QFs in the previous format either. The top two in the 2nd stage pool went directly to the semis.

    The last time there were QFs was in 2002, but back then the second stage consisted of three pools of four teams, so the best ranked 3rd team also qualified for the QFs, which IMO wasn't an optimal solution either.


    I don't know why the FIVB constantly refuses to go with the most logical and straightforward formula - top 4 in the 2nd stage pools -> QF.

    Well it's a terrible idea because Serbia decides to be smart... f6 is a better format to determine the best team if all teams play to win every game...

    Rasic scored 20 points in the first game against Japan...and she did not even played all 4 sets. Japan did their homework and they were ready to defend the middles in this second game.


    I still hate when Maja gets a good pass...or it is a free ball and she simply ignores Veljokivic...I felt bad because Velkovic only got like 3 sets ...but when she spiked one out she was benched.....But this is what Terzic wants.....they did not even set the middles in the friendlies against Bulgaria and Mexico....so of course they won`t start doing that now..


    another thing...If Boskovic was injured....why did she get so many balls today?? Why not even bring Bjelica in a double sub? Especially in the first 2 sets when they were leading by a lot???.....I guess Terzic thinks we are dumb.


    By the way....at some point during the game I went on youtube to check what was going on in the live chat of that Brazilian channel on youtube that has been streaming a lot of games....and all the talk was about Serbia fixed or not fixed game against Japan.....funny because there were actually some fans defending Serbia...but mostly it was everyone saying Serbia lost on purpose of course.

    Question to Italian fans, Egonu is now listed as 193cm I think she just used to be 189/190cm. Probably insignificant due to how high she naturally jumps but growing taller is always good anyways.