At least no other teams get harmed from Serbia's ridiculous display...but it's shameful anyway.
2015 FIVB World Grand Prix
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So we have competed line-up for Final Six
USA (host), China, Brazil, Italy, Russia and Japan -
Brazil has been playing surprisingly well with this Rexona + Dani and Sassá combo. Juciely especially is having a super solid season with the NT - Adenízia should fear for her spot in Rio next year for sure. On the other hand, although the game is still not over, I expected more from Italy at home.
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Random tought: I'm quite impressed with how many lefty opposites play in this GP...boskovic,drpa,zeng, lowe,murphy,nagaoka,uslupehlivan...
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Do the US enter in the finals as #1 in the schedule?
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Brazil never has problems with Italy if they play without Picci
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Jucy with 11 blocks in 3 sets.
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Jucy with 11 blocks in 3 sets.
And the reward is getting one badly into the face from Sorokaite
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And the reward is getting one badly into the face from Sorokaite
I guess you can't have nice things in the end. lol
By the way, Egonu shouldn't be in the senior NT yet. She's still super unprepared and it may burn her out. Give the girl some more time in the U18/U20/U21 teams, it's not like Italy has problems in the OH position.
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Jucy has been superb this season on NT, Brazil with 18 blocks in 3 sets and 11 from her
. Watching this game I feel embarrassing for the Italian attackers, especially Diouf, Jucy don't give any chance, I can't wait to see USA x Brazil in the final six. -
it's not like Italy has problems in the OH position.
they don't?! I think they do...
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Quoted from "saishuu"
it's not like Italy has problems in the OH position.
they don't?! I think they do...No, we don't.
It was useful to take a closer look at her, maybe decide whether she is better suited as OP or OH and stuff like that.
You don't burn her out if you make her understand what she needs in order to play at the next level. -
they don't?! I think they do...
With Picci, Del Core, Tirozzi, Gennari and L. Bosetti? I know the first two are older and will not compete in this WGP, but they're better off than 90% of the other teams.
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they don't?! I think they do...
Italy has some problems with OHs indeed, however I think that Tirozzi needs to play on international level more. In league she was like a beast
The same goes to Gennari which shone there as well.Unfortunately Lucia Bosetti is not the same player after injury
her younger sister Caterina is ok for OH2 slot, but she won't be a killer...Sylla, Loda or Egonu are all inxeperienced, especially Egonu is so young, but we have also Alessia Orro in the same age here
Piccinini, Del Core, Costgrande are experienced, but just relatively old and we won't call them all time long (all a little bit younger than Sokolova, but all are going into this direction). Others like Barcellini are mediocre... Fiorin is both mediocre and old
I wonder where is Di Iulio
she never got a bigger chance to be an important player in NT 
So there IS a problem, but there is some time for these players to improve (not too much for Tirozzi however
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One more comment about German team this weekend: Wiebke Silge turned 19 on Thursday and played AMAZING the whole weekend
I think she is at least as good as Fürst was at the same age, in attack probably even better. Good server, good attacker, good blocker, what more do you want? The NT players who were not included this weekend (Dörendahl, Lippmann, Pettke) did technical comment for German TV in the 3 matches and all of them spoke very positively about Silge, how she always stays cool, isn't nervous and always performs well. However shaky the overall performance of German NT has been so far this summer, Silge has been the bright spot of our game most of the time.Another player who has definitely made a step forward was Brinker, even though this weekend I wasn't too impressed with her. Overall she played a good tournament, reliable in attack and also not too weak in reception.
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So there IS a problem, but there is some time for these players to improve
Add Partenio to the mix, reconsider who you called "mediocre", wait for at least six young/very young players to develop.
The only problem I see is abundance. Bosetti is a non-problem. She was much better than this in the past weeks.---
Let's pretend that this World Grand Prix were for real instead of this sideshow with first units vs. second units and viceversa.
Since nobody knew the answers to my questions @ post 524 , or nobody bothered to answer, in which case I repeat:
- are the draws guided by some kind of seeding? e.g. Brazil is #1 seed and benefits from easier schedule?
- who decides which teams play multiple times the same opponents?
- is it because of an agreement based on the venues? Or, are all teams assigned to a location randomly?So, since nobody answered, I proceeded with the calculation of strength of schedule as if it were completely random, and came to the conclusion that it is in accord with what common sense suggested.
In the end, justice was done because Germany wasted the chance to qualify with the weakest schedule (along with Brazil) as opposed to the very strong schedule of Japan.---
The main problem of Germany definitely isn't their middles, as you feared! I'm also glad that the criticism of Brinker diminished because she must be a very nice person, a better player than you think (head and shoulders above her younger teammates), and has improved tremendously over the Italian years.
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Italian roster for the Final Six:
S: Malinov - Orro
OPP: Diouf - Sorokaite
OH: L.Bosetti - C. Bosetti - Tirozzi - Sylla
MB: Arrighetti - Chirichella - Guiggi - Folie
L: De Gennaro - SansonnaSource: http://www.federvolley.it/index.php?idnews=13619
Paola Egonu and Alessia Gennari won't be part of the 14 athletes. Alessia has a knee problem that will be healed in the next week.
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Display MoreAdd Partenio to the mix, reconsider who you called "mediocre", wait for at least six young/very young players to develop.
The only problem I see is abundance. Bosetti is a non-problem. She was much better than this in the past weeks.---
Let's pretend that this World Grand Prix were for real instead of this sideshow with first units vs. second units and viceversa.
Since nobody knew the answers to my questions @ post 524 , or nobody bothered to answer, in which case I repeat:
- are the draws guided by some kind of seeding? e.g. Brazil is #1 seed and benefits from easier schedule?
- who decides which teams play multiple times the same opponents?
- is it because of an agreement based on the venues? Or, are all teams assigned to a location randomly?So, since nobody answered, I proceeded with the calculation of strength of schedule as if it were completely random, and came to the conclusion that it is in accord with what common sense suggested.
In the end, justice was done because Germany wasted the chance to qualify with the weakest schedule (along with Brazil) as opposed to the very strong schedule of Japan.---
The main problem of Germany definitely isn't their middles, as you feared! I'm also glad that the criticism of Brinker diminished because she must be a very nice person, a better player than you think (head and shoulders above her younger teammates), and has improved tremendously over the Italian years.
Barcellini is mediocre indeed, but it's hard to find more players in league to NT... agree that Partenio should be tried more, maybe we can find some decent prospects for future like Marika Bianchini (but rather as OP recently), Alice Degradi or maybe Elena Perinelli
I don't think that there's any rule of seeding teams - noone knows how FIVB divides teams in pools
I think that it's rather randomly chosen, sometimes we have quite strong pools like USA, Brazil, Russia and Poland in one pool in 2013... -
Gennari is out and Cate is in...
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Caterina deserved it, for once. Unfortunately Gennari needs a little therapy.
[end of OT] On top of my mind, based on serie A only, I can think of Degradi, Pascucci, Guasti, D'Odorico, Guerra, Mambelli, Lestini, Mingardi. How are you so well informed about Italian pro volleyball?
Strong teams in a strong pool is fair. Some strong teams in the strong pool and one not, isn't fair. Anyway, why would FIVB be more concerned with equality if so many teams try not to qualify for the WGP finals...