CEV U18 European Championship 2017

  • I have impression that composition of these polls is rather, to put it mildly, unequal.


    Why do you say that? Do you have any idea about the strength of each team? This is a new generation that we have not watched before :rolleyes:

  • Italy is coming with a good roster I think.
    3 players from Club Italia (Morello, Lubian and Enweonwu) and 1 from Foppapedretti Bergamo (Battista) who played in Serie A1 this season.
    Especially Enweonwu, Egonu's cousin, showed very good things and a very powerful arm the few times she played this season.
    But the real star is probably the OH Elena Pietrini, MVP of the Qualification Tournament, who is considered the 'new Piccinini' by many people in Italy.

  • What a nightmarish performance by Germany :white: They were simply terrible in all elements :aww:


    It's hard to say if Turkey is really that great, their other matches will show it.


    I have checked statistics and have to state, this was far away from a match on equal height. In many respects, Turkey was a class up against Germany, an embarassing performance by German girls, caused by big deficits in education in the DVV.

  • I'm surprised about Germany, I don't know the players (well, I barely know the Italians girls ^^') but I read that in our pool could be considered among the favorite!
    And this schedule doesn't forgive any mistake, we know it very well since in September we didn't even qualify to the semi having loss only 1 match of 5 :S


    Enweonwu, Egonu's cousin


    I didn't know that!
    I agree that Italy has some interesting players, for me Pietrini-Lubian-Morello among all (in the order).

  • Yes! 3-0 Italy vs Russia!
    I couldn't watch the match (i was following Trento) but if I can I will.
    Morello-Enweonwu, Lubian-Kone, Tanase-Pietrini, Libero I don't know which one... (as I don't know who Kone and Tanase are...)

  • Belarus should be Dark Horse here.

    I don't like Semis after Group Phase idea. Should be Qs.

  • There are more dark horses present: Bulgaria won not only the first two sets against favorite Turkey, but even after the last leveled very pronounced they won an incredible tie-break with 23:21 and upset Turkey finally. The group of death seems to be even more deadly than expected (Italy, Turkey and Russia were likely considered as the strongest teams there).

  • Russia lost 3-0 again (vs Netherland)! Well, everything it's possible in volleyball, but their path to the semi has already became quite hard...


    And today Russia won 3-0 vs Bulgaria, and Italy won 3-0 vs Turkey.
    C'mon girls, you can do it :super:
    Ps our best receiver had 11% :|

  • Interesting situation in Pool A- beside Italy, every Team has still chance to be in Semis, 2 matches will be played.

    In B- Belarus should be in S, Poland, Romania or Serbia..

  • Yes!! Italy won 3-0 vs Bulgaria and it's not only in the semi, but first of the pool as well! Super proud!
    I'm very curious to see who will be second of the pool!
    BTW I'm wondering if it's us playing particularly well/the opponents playing bad vs us/a mix of both, or if this is the real difference between Italy an the other teams of the pool. If I think that we even risked not to qualify to this JECh i must admit I was expecting good things from the girls, but not that good!!


    Ps I hope that not losing any sets won't be a mental obstacle in case things get bad during the final4... But I have to admit that we also won sets after being behind, so I wanna hope that we won't melt at the first difficulty ^^

  • Seems like Italy is another category compared to the rest of European teams. :super:
    Two main reasons for me are:
    1.Club Italia in Serie A
    2.Immigration from Africa