2018 FIVB World Championship - Japan

    i like Tijana and Zhu..im hesitant to support which one..:lol:

    anyway..i think id like an european team to win it. CHina just won Rio OG :win: ..

    on the other hand, i want to support the underdog : i can support the Dutch team!! :)

    Speaking of world class opposites (or European opposites for that matter), I always wondered why Boskovic was always compared to Zhu, when they both play different positions. Now we finally have Egonu who can give Tijana some serious competiton. I personally think Boskovic hits the ball harder, but Egonu it seems can hit anywhere in the court and I think has a higher contact point when spiking.


    Sloetjes and Goncahrova are just a notch below these two. Your thoughts guys?

    inc0gnito same feelings pretty much. Tandara is also powerful.


    BTW Sloëtjes truly impressed me today, sometimes her approach was fast as lightning speed XD I hate when people critique her unfairly all the time, she really is athletic and hard working!

    Egonu seems to be most dangerous OPP to me...she seems to be able to get the points the others can't , thanks to her athleticism


    Tijana,Lonneke,Goncharova,Tandara... we can add to the list Smarzek and Lippmann in a near future

    who knows maybe Ebrar later

    I think both Zhu and Boskovic were the two most dominant players that was a difference maker all those years prior and in Rio. They were both young yet crazy talented. Egonu was still developing at the time. The gold medal match between China and Serbia solidified that comparison. Zhu then joined the Turkish League which continued that rivalry. Now Egonu is on the same playing field with them.

    Quote from Padar

    Imagine next year's CEV league, Vakifbank, Ezacibasi and Novara all in the F4.:box:

    Imagine one of the best club in World. Imoco say hey :) 3 players from Italy NT are part of Imoco + Folie.

    2 Novara

    2 Scandicci

    Tonight would be fun if all 4 teams played with their bench. We haven't seen much of their bench players...I would like to see how they would perform. (I think Serbia's bench have played the most among the 4).


    But I would give anything to watch Italy Vs Serbia playing at full strength....otherwise we could end up not seen it at all.

    Quote from pope

    Tonight would be fun if all 4 teams played with their bench. We haven't seen much of their bench players...I would like to see how they would perform. (I think Serbia's bench have played the most among the 4).


    But I would give anything to watch Italy Vs Serbia playing at full strength....otherwise we could end up not seen it at all.

    Same. But Mazzanti today in the interview specifically said he's worried about the physical conditions of the players, so we'll probably see a big turnover tomorrow. No point in risking fatigue and injuries when China can decide who to play against in the semifinals too. China or Netherlands is the same at this point and I don't want to see a repeat of 2014.

    If He didn't gave them rest in Final6 I don't see reason why He would do it know. Now it is time to push your limits and show your full power. They have 3 matches to play...

    Maybe He will give Sylla rest and put Pietrini to see how will she responds if Sylla cracks in important time.

    Quote from inc0gnito

    Speaking of world class opposites (or European opposites for that matter), I always wondered why Boskovic was always compared to Zhu, when they both play different positions. Now we finally have Egonu who can give Tijana some serious competiton. I personally think Boskovic hits the ball harder, but Egonu it seems can hit anywhere in the court and I think has a higher contact point when spiking.

    Hard question. I always thought Boskovic was better than Egonu because she's a better digger (while in attack, serve and block they seems to have similar qualities – correct me if I'm wrong!) and because Egonu is too error prone, even if she usually delivers when it matter the most... but during this WCh Paola was less error prone than we were used too (so far, at least), and she also got smarter in her attack choice, so it's getting more tougher to decide who's better.


    I really like Sloetjes, but for age and athleticism I think it's difficult to compare her to the other two.

    Probably she's the most technical among the three?



    Quote from crovolley

    I don't see reason why He would do it know. Now it is time to push your limits and show your full power. They have 3 matches to play...

    Well, now we played a very hard (both physically and mentally) 5 sets match and we have less than 24 hour to recover (even if after that we have 2 days of rest).

    Mazzanti also said that the floor (under the tara flex) is very hard and not a peace of cake for the knees.


    On the other hand, he's aware that the girls want it all, so he'll see ^^

    I don't think tonights games will be friendlies at all. As far as i know, no team has major injury issues they can't play through. Boskovic they said got an injury but we see how she played last game. i think Italy will go out and try to get the W. They have the perfect record at stake. Serbia will play to win too because if I were them, I'd rather play the Netherlands. China, both lang ping and zhu ting are of ultra competitive personality, losing to Italy is already one too many for them and also for their proud fans. Remember their male counterparts just put up a humiliating performance at the world's. As the Olympic champions, they will play like one. Netherlands being the underdog as they have always been, I think always think about one more game first before they think about the championship so they will play hard.

    Quote from inc0gnito

    Speaking of world class opposites (or European opposites for that matter), I always wondered why Boskovic was always compared to Zhu, when they both play different positions. Now we finally have Egonu who can give Tijana some serious competiton. I personally think Boskovic hits the ball harder, but Egonu it seems can hit anywhere in the court and I think has a higher contact point when spiking.


    Sloetjes and Goncahrova are just a notch below these two. Your thoughts guys?

    True indeed, comparing Zhu and Boskovic is not right. I think Boskovic vs Egonu and Zhu vs Kim sound better comparisons. Both Boskovic and Egonu have been leading starter in their team in such early ages (Boskovic was only 17 in 2014 WCh while Egonu played as starter when she was 18 years old at 2016 OG.) Both of them has very good blocking techniques and dangerous serves. Boskovic is better at digging but I see Egonu is also improving in this element. Only player I could compare to these two is Haak. Since she is not playing in a strong NT, she is not praised as much as Egonu and Boskovic but I think she is the only player who has the same potential of Boskovic and Egonu (considering Haak is also even younger than Egonu and Boskovic)


    I agree with you that veterans Goncharova, Sloetjes and Tandara are just below these 3 youngsters.


    Lippman, Rahimova and Smarzek are the other 3 top Opps in my opinion.