2015 World Cup - Japan - 8/22

  • Korea needs to find at least one good spiker or MB. they can't depend on KYK forever. another receipt to show how great KYK as an overall player tbh.


    chinese is rebuilding. they suffer a bad transition phase after yimei. now ruoqi has found herself a partner to go side by side with her as oh. zhu ting needs to upgrade her receiving.


    having lowe on court was a joke. when they went against serbia she was stopped so many times but she was still on court. the minute they put fawcett in she scored. pathetic decision tbh

  • Congrats to China and Serbia, and big thanks to Russia! Good luck in ECH!

  • I really hope Hui Ruoqi was there (tears) She just sacrifices a lot to deserve the champion

  • I really hope Hui Ruoqi was there (tears) She just sacrifices a lot to deserve the champion

    yes. she carried China during the post-Yimei transition. too bad she couldn't be there to celebrate.

  • china is now playing better bcz they have started to serve as well as japan..serve is the most key element in today's volleyball that changes anything


    totally agree with what you said.
    serve is the key element to control the rhythm of the play.
    from the team stats, China and Japan, the best serve team and the second best serve team in this tournament...of course they will try to use their best technical skills.

    i may not be the tallest,
    the fastest, or the strongest,
    but at least i can do one thing better than anyone else,
    to be me...

  • when i saw the cozy picture that Chinese players showing sports shirt of Hui Ruoqi, Yang Fangxu and Xu Yunli on the podium...i couldnt help bursting into tears. how nice they are!!! The three absent players really deserve the champion also...


    i couldnt wait to see this roster for Rio next Year, what do you guys think....very fascinating player list, isnt it?


    S: Wei Qiuyue, Shen Jingsi
    OP: Zeng Chunlei, Yang Fangxu
    OH: Zhu Ting, Hui Ruoqi, Zhang Changning, Liu Yanhan (or Liu Xiaotong)
    MB: Yang Junjing, Yan Ni, Yuan Xinyue, Xu Yunli
    L: Lin Li, Wang Mengjie

    i may not be the tallest,
    the fastest, or the strongest,
    but at least i can do one thing better than anyone else,
    to be me...

  • You have to cut 2 players: OG rosters have 12 players.


    oh, thank you, you just remind me well...very difficult to decide the final 12 then.
    liberos as well as centrals seem too crowded. :win:


    Between Shen Jingsi and Ding Xia, very hard for me to choose, the former is tall in height and good in blocking, the latter is creative and courageous.
    Lang Ping may reserve one more summer for them to take the further test.

    i may not be the tallest,
    the fastest, or the strongest,
    but at least i can do one thing better than anyone else,
    to be me...

  • Except the matches that SRB played against other top 4 teams, tournament was pretty boring. There were only 1 or 2 matches of which results are not predicted beforehand. A few notes about top teams and individual awards:


    CHN: Great performance! I don't agree with people allegeing that CHN took advantage of schedule and also the ones who claim that CHN is a boring team. CHN does not rely on Zhu as much as KOR-KYK or RUS-Goncharova. Lang ping should get most of the credit. She did amazing job with such a young roster. Also I expected that the absence of Hui in last minute would effect CHN's game more severely. Also Yang Fangxu and Wei Quiyue were injured. I don't think any other team in this tournament could recover as well as CHN did in the absence of their S, Opp and OH. (Imagine SRB without Ognjenoviç, Boskoviç and Maleseviç or RUS without Kosienenko, Goncharova and Scherban)


    SRB: Finally they had injury-free season and showed their real performance. It was pleasure to watch Ognjenoviç, there are not many good European setters anymore. Also Boskoviç showed everybody that she is not a player who shined in only one tournament. She will be one of those phenomenal Opps that is raised once in every decade. Besides, seeing that Stevanoviç kept her great shape in NT as well after a great club season. It is unbelievable that great MB such as Veljkoviç has to sit on bench. Lastly, Mihajloviç seemed to improve a lot after one season in Brasil. She has become a more constant player.


    USA: Biggest disappointment of the tournament. They couldn't manage to win their key matches and now we know that how vulnerable Kiraly's fast ball system is. Although they have astonishing individual players, they are not as dominating as they are supposed to be. I also agree that Fawcett must play as starter. Harmotto's performance was disappointing, hasn't she fully recovered yet? Akinradewo is a great attacking MB, but she is not a good blocker like Rasiç, Fürst or Poljak.


    RUS: Playing WGP finals was a bad idea. Goncharova reached her peak during WGP and her level declined match by match. Koshelava is still a monster, it is great to see that she is fully recovered. Scherban was a positive surprise to me, if she keeps improving, her starting position would be safe for a long time. RUS is still favourite to get the OG ticket in Ankara, however, I don't expect any medal from them in upcoming ECh. Fetisove has been one of the most consistent blocker of the tournament, I don't understand why Marichev didn't use her as starter from the beginning of the tournament. :down: Neither Orlova nor Lyubishkina was conciving. Fortunately, there is another promising MB, Angelina Lazarenko (1998). Although she is still very young, I believe she will be the solution of Russia's longlasting MB problem.


    JPN: Saori's perfomance dropped drastically in last a few years, she is neither good at attacking nor at receiving anymore. On the other hand, Sarina Koga and Miyu Nagaoka are great prospects. Miyashita is playing well but still has a long way to go for becoming a phenomenal player as previous Japanese setters.


    About individual awards;


    Setter position is the only one that is not supposed to be given based on the statistics. It was obvious that Marte did not show anything special whereas Ognjenoviç played an incredible tournament.


    Libero: I am satisfied with the choice of Castillo. She always has a different level, however, Malova showed a very consistent performance as well, especially at reeption she improved a lot. Thus I wouldn't oppose if she had received best libero award.


    Opp: To me, best opposite was clearly Boskoviç, she was very decisive at critical points while Obmochaeva was vice versa.


    MBs: Both Cuban players deserved to receive awards indeed and if only one would get award, if must be Rojas not Lescay since Rojas was better at attacking than Lescay although both has same amount of killing blocks. In addition, Emilce Sosa also performed surprisingly well although she did not play 4-5 matches she had a lot of killing blocks which is more surprising considering her short height.


    OHs: Both Kosheleva and Mihajloviç were best attacking OHs with Zhu without any doubt, however, to me, best OH award must given to best receiver OH with high scoring ratio. That's why I would choose KYK and Sarina Koga, who were both great scorers and stable receivers.


    MVP: Zhu totally deserved it. :obey: She will be even better than KYK. She is not only great attacker but also amazing blocker.


    By the way, I wonder if Sarina Koga, Tijana Boskoviç, Yuan Xİnyue, Melissa Vargas and Brayelin Martinez will play next week in U21 WCh. There is only 5 days left to start of tournament ?(

  • By the way, I wonder if Sarina Koga, Tijana Boskoviç, Yuan Xİnyue, Melissa Vargas and Brayelin Martinez will play next week in U21 WCh. There is only 5 days left to start of tournament ?(

    Yuan and Vargas are not even in their teams' wide rosters, and I really hope the other players will get a rest after WC. For DOM there is also Brayelin's sister Jineiry, and they both also played U23 WCH until just a few days before WC :white:

  • yes, I agree with ravens#7.
    Ding Xia in and Shen out. I always consider Shen as the transitional setter after Wei Qiu yue because of the similar style.

  • Opp: To me, best opposite was clearly Boskoviç, she was very decisive at critical points while Obmochaeva was vice versa.


    I totally agree. Their stats are very much alike, except that one took charge when it mattered the most and the other one didn't.


    And she won't play at the U21 WCh. She's a senior NT player only now.

  • Comparing the best spiker stats from 2011 and 2015, this makes me wonder where the huge improvement comes from. In 2011 no player was above 50% and only two players above 45%, while in 2015 we have 4 players with 50% or higher and almost the whole top 10 above 45%.


    Possible reasons:
    - in 2015 there were more weak opponents against which the top spikers could attack with high % (counter-argument: some of the top attackers were rested against weak opponents)
    - the quality of the attackers has increased
    - the quality of the setters has increased (not confirmed by the best setter stats)
    - the quality of reception has increased (not confirmed by the best receiver stats)
    - the quality of the blockers has decreased (not confirmed by the best blocker stats)
    - the quality of defense has decreased (not confirmed by the best digger stats)


    Interested to hear opinions.


  • I believe there are two main reasons:


    1- One probable reason for unexpected high attacking ratios is the fact that the gap between top 4 and remaining teams were way bigger compared to 2011 edition. In 2011, there were 5 very good teams and 4 good teams which have occasionally beaten top 5 teams and only 2 weak teams (again ALG and KEN but with better rosters). However, in the last tournament, there were only 4 top teams and 1 good team, level of DOM and KOR were not more than average, other 5 teams were simply very bad, which increased overall attacking ratios of players from top 4. You are right with your counter argument, some of the starters did not play against weak teams, but some of them did and got crazy high attacking numbers (i.e Pena attacked 14/17 against ALG, KYK attacked 20/31 against KEN and 35/55 against CUB, some other top attackers also played a few sets against weak teams and get attacking ratios around 90%). Digging stats were similar in 2011 and 2015, however there is significant difference between blocking stats in two editions. Although number of overall stuff blocks were similar, the number of rebound blocks were 20 % higher in 2011 than in 2015, which points out better blocking organization of the partipating teams of 2011, decreasing the attacking ratios.


    2- In addition to the unbalanced team distribution of 2015 edition, there were simply more power-spikers in the last tournament. In 2011, most of the attackers were not attacking machines but more all-round and technical attackers such as Zhang Lei, Costagrande, Saori, Lucia Bosetti, Ebata, Brinker, Pequeno, Sheila, Kozuch, Bjelica, Larson and Logan. However, now we have Zhu, Mihajloviç, Boskoviç, Kosheleva, Goncharova, Fawcett and Pena. These big girls have insane spike reach and they attack over block most of the time. In 2011, the only dominant attacker was Hooker who has already attacked 49.5% (4 years ago, De La Cruz and KYK were not as killer attackers as currently they are).


    All in all, the underlying reasons for this unexpected high spiking ratio of attackers are both the high number of low level teams that have worse blocking organization and the exceptional individual players that have simply better attacking skills. By the way good point Matthias! I haven’t noticed this untill you pointed out. :drink:

  • I agree on Serdar. I think it is mainly due to the gap between the teams however I would also add that players are physically better compared to 4 years ago. I know it is a short period of time but still the techniques, the diets and trainings change in positive direction, producing better athletes each year.

  • Going even further back in history, in 2007 the attacking % were similar to those this year, i.e. clearly better than in 2011. It would be interesting to look at the stats of other big tournaments to see what is "normal", but I'm really too lazy to do this ;)


    And another thing I forgot: 4 years ago the tournament was in November, so in the middle of club season and the players had no time to prepare well for WC, while this year they could do so better. But then, in 2007 it was also in November and yet the players had higher %.