Men's World Championship 2018

About the formula, I think that it isn't tought well from the start, but a big problem is having two hosts, that both start as 'head', changing the equilibrium.

Not having Rozalin Penchev can be annoying for Bulgaria if Bratoev doesn't have his game.

Just checked the stats for the Russia x Finland match and, assuming the stats are correct, Kurkaev had 7 blocks in a 3 set match! This must be a record for a single player at least for this competition? Kurkaev made Vlasov a cheeleader of Russian NT

Italy's bench vs Netherlands.

Why isn't Rai streaming this?

it is, on Rai2...

We grew in the second set, except for a little black out around 20. Now we digged more costantly and spiked better.

Despite one good ace, Candellaro is really hopeless so far. Like 3-4 attack mistakes, 2 blocked...

Ps Juantorena is on the bench, I tought he was still in Civitanova.

Quote from Kk15

Despite one good ace, Candellaro is really hopeless so far. Like 3-4 attack mistakes, 2 blocked...

I'm glad I specify 'so far': now he is spiking better and closed a tight end of set with a good serve an a direct ace, 27-25!

Ps the end of the set was thight but we were losing 12-18! And 23-21

Rossini is so bad.

Now that I think about it, Nelli and Karakurt are like twins.

I do think Candellaro and Baranowicz perform better from the service line than Nelli. I really hope Blengini will finally notice this.

Btw what a pity Baranowciz is receiving so many bad balls from the italian reception. He tries as much as he can to make play all, mostly the MBs, but he has been running around all the court. Most of the time because of Rossini's poor performance.

Eventhough Baranowicz isnt young anymore, I think he is the only italian setter who could replace Giannelli when the latter loses concentration. For me, his connection wih Zaytsev is better. Wondering why he wasnt the second setter even before Giannelli appearance in the NT.

If my italian is good enough, italian commentatos say he hasnt a team yet.

and Think that last year Blengini always used Spirito to serve, and he has a (not very effective) float serve, so it's not even a 'he prefers jump serve' topic.

I'm very fond of Rossini but it't at least 2 year he isn't playing very well, and for me it was a pity not to use Balaso as second (as last year). Imho if it wasnt't for the '6 OG players in the VNL' rules, Rossini would have probably stayed home all summer season...

About Bara, yes he is the second best, and everybody (included himself) wondered about his exlusion. He didn't expect the Call this year, and he admitted crying about it

And yes, since Piacenza choose to play A2, he doesn't have a team.

Aaand Italy won 3-1 with a very good 4th set, I'm very happy for the 'bench' and the public/spectator/movement.

Candellaro closed the match with an attack, so he's forgiven for the bad start, and my MVP is Nelli + Baranowicz

The final 6 pool distribution will be (one team to be drawn from each bracket) :

[Italy, Brazil] x [USA, Poland] x [Russia, Serbia]

For Italy, the following combination seems the optimal:

Italy, Poland, Serbia

That way, they can avoid Brazil, USA and Russia all at once.

7° posto: Belgio (+10) e Canada (0)

9° posto: Bulgaria (+4), Francia (-5), Olanda (+16), Slovenia (+16)

13° posto: Argentina (-2), Australia (+2), Finlandia (-4), Iran (-7)

17° posto: Camerun (+4), Cuba (-6), Egitto (+4), Giappone (+8)

21° posto: Cina (-6), Rep. Dominicana (+4), Portorico (0), Tunisia (0)

When will the draw for the final 6 take place? Looking forward to the pool distribution.

At 11 am.

I don't know if there will be a live streaming, though.

they'll be aired on the FIVB youtube account.

J: Poland, Serbia, Italy

I: USA, Brazil, Russia

That was a quite lucky draft for us, even if in case of semifinals it's not that lucky anymore...

It's a balanced pool distribution to me but it's such a shame that the three strongest teams in the world are in the same group.

I'm not that sure that right now Brazil is stronger than Serbia, but at the same time Brazil is known to make it works when the game gets tougher, while Serbia often fails the last steps (unless it's against Italy, which has an even poorer tradition in these moments XD)

Quote from Kk15

I'm not that sure that right now Brazil is stronger than Serbia, but at the same time Brazil is known to make it works when the game gets tougher, while Serbia often fails the last steps (unless it's against Italy, which has an even poorer tradition in these moments XD)

How is Serbia stronger than Brazil? VNL showed even without Borges and Lucarelli, they are a team you can never underestimate.