Men's Club World Championship 2017

It depends on Christenson. If his usual Sokolov-itis syndrome strikes then Sokolov will be the important factor

Quote from mosi

Hard to believe Sarmayeh lost this after such a comfortable start !! they had so many chances to finish the match. specially Mahmoudi

glad to not see Mirzajanpour in the NT, he had a good match overall but he did stupid things in crucial points.

He tried "the Ngapeth" twice but to his defence, at least one of them was a bit forced by Zygadlo.
Imo, Zygadlo generally had some problems in crunch time today. Some inaccuracies and bad choices when they hurt most.

But it was a very entertaining match i have to say. Great passion and fighting spirit from both teams.

Sarmayeh lost their patience. I feel that ruined them. They do not have the same firepower as the other teams in their group and yet they lost points through the impatient desire to end the point at once.

The PGE Skra Libero looks like the guy from the viral fake video of him getting hit on the head by the ball many times.

Sokolov varying his serve is paying really well for Civitanova and for himself who makes a lot of errors from the serving line.

Is this Sada Cruzerio or are they still in Brasil?

Civitanova is showing a marked difference in class.

I have a feeling Sada has no clue to whom should they gave their serve to which is causing this sensation atleast for this round.

Perugia does not seem that bad anymore after the defeat in Superlega.

Sokolov's serving Some of those services were impossible to receive .
Leal is total disappointment so far

Monstrous Performance by Sokolov. This is beyond uncontrollable. Civitanova is already too strong without his serve.

Stankovic down. Doesn't look like a knee so it's probably all good.

Quote from saishuu

Lube playing their best game in ages and Sada playing their worst in I don't even know how long.

and this must be one of the worse matches of Sander in terms of service and attack

This match should have been played by the Sada bench players - the team just imploded and couldn't really get it together. Sada have been playing below par matches and still managing to win anyway for a while now - they now need to raise their game, today they seemed shocked. It does make for the rest of the tournament interesting though... and should Sada go through, possibly Kazan awaits in the semis... Good composed play by Lube

Anyone who speaks portuguese that can explain to us why Leal was so angry during the last time out and had a fight with the libero?

Wow Lube!!! Congrats!!!

Quote from Mamdani

Anyone who speaks portuguese that can explain to us why Leal was so angry during the last time out and had a fight with the libero?

I watched the video but I can`t really understand what they are saying, I think I hear Leal saying " you need to respect me" but again I`m not sure if that what`s saying, but in the end I can understand exactly what he`s saying and Leal says " You are doing nothing"

I think Sergio said something to Leal about the way he was playing, and Leal got mad and told him to shut up once he ( Sergio) is playing just as bad as him.

Quote from rbdfabio

I watched the video but I can`t really understand what they are saying, I think I hear Leal saying " you need to respect me" but again I`m not sure if that what`s saying, but in the end I can understand exactly what he`s saying and Leal says " You are doing nothing"

I think Sergio said something to Leal about the way he was playing, and Leal got mad and told him to shut up once he ( Sergio) is playing just as bad as him.

Thank you

What an entertaining first day already! Although, to me, this is not quite a complete World Club Championship without African and North American teams, we can't neglect the fact that this must be the best World Club Championship FIVB have organized. At least in terms of quality and participants. I follow some of the European leagues, so I was mostly looking forward to watching the non-European teams. Thanks to a Brazilian YouTube uploader, we have access to their league and Cruzeiro's matches. Which left us with Bolivar, Shanghai, and Sarmayeh as teams whose shape/game is relatively unknown.

The journey to Poland may have played a role for those non-European teams mentioned. Bolivar and Shanghai were a bit disappointing, in fact. Disappointing not in comparison to the performance of African and North American teams in previous editions, of course, but in terms of the rosters they have. There are still two days to go for both and I hope they can step up. I will watch Shanghai in more details, they have some interesting Chinese players and I hoped they would deliver more against the shaky Skra. About Bolivar, to me, the biggest problem was their setter German Galdon. I see Demian Gonzalez in their roster, perhaps he is injured. Bolivar aren't bad at all in reception and in attack but they don't stand a chance with Galdon. I was wondering why such a good team has been underperforming in the domestic league, so this makes it much easier to understand. The guy's height is not the main problem, but rather his speed, his total predictability and inaccuracy. Rozalin Penchev and Theo Lopes got some unnecessarily high balls and struggled to find rhythm with him yesterday. He obviously hadn't had experience at this level, but you have to show your best volleyball at such a short tournament.

The other group is obviously the one we are all looking forward to. Ever since I turned on the stream in the second set of Cruzeiro vs. Lube and saw the score and both teams' performance I have remained speechless. I still can't find explanation to what I saw. This was the worst Cruzeiro I have watched. The quarrel inside the team at the end of the match and the fact that Cester owned Simon in the third set say enough. They were absent yesterday, they can theoretically only play better. I will, for now, leave it with the fact that they had a long journey to travel and that they are obviously not in great shape, apart from the fact that they no longer have William as a playmaker. I will be expecting more from Cruzeiro with Uriarte and let's see if that change means we'll never see the old Cruzeiro again. On the other side, Lube are known to be masters in the mid-season games. Too often have they suffered in April and May, but we've seen brilliant volleyball from them in December. This was no exception. I don't even think this was their best match ever (the reason was that even more players could have contributed to Sokolov and Juantorena), although it comes pretty close. I had never seen Sokolov serve like that and, believe me, I follow his stats from the service line. Now they have the challenge to keep on which, knowing Lube, might be more difficult to do. I am sure a re-match with Cruzeiro will look differently.

I had to stop watching ZAKSA vs. Sarmayeh in the third set, so please, explain to me what happened with the Iranian NT? ZAKSA were so poor that there was no way for them to turn things around. Have the Iranians committed a suicide? Their game worked in so many ways, contrary to Toniutti's struggles to find a decent attacker. I can't remember the last time I saw Buszek kill a ball, the guy is nothing more than a bench player. The score made absolutely no sense to me and I feel sorry for Sarmayeh. But this group now is so cool