CEV Women’s European Championship 2019 - hosts Turkey, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia

Quote from Canter

Iceland got 17 pts in 3 sets in the match vs.Belgium

Belgium played without Grobelna, Herbots, Van Gestel, Heyrman

Iceland maybe was the weakest team in the qualifications and their players having the most difficult names to learn.

i think slovenia needs one set against israel to take the last ticket

Slovenia,Romania,Swizterland and Estonia took the last tickets

Estonia, who would have thought. Good job! Nice to have a baltic country there (LTU and LAT seem to give more priority to beachvolleyball is my impression...?).

And Czech Republic from being one of the organizers to be out

Quote from saishuu

I'm out of the loop here, but are they still hosting? if so, how do they not have a spot secured?

They're not hosting, they've been replaced by Slovakia.

Also, now that they're out of ECh, I wonder if they're even going to bother with the Olympic qualifications. I don't know how much sense it would make to gather the team and fly somehwere halfway across the world just for a three day tournament they have no chance in hell of winning and they can't even use it as a preparation for the upcoming competition.

Yes, this is kind of catastrophe for Czech NT, but never all top players were attending their matches, you have to know.

The embarassment of the day: Iceland lost at home 4-, 7-, 6- (!) against Yellow Tigers (Belgium), despite the latter were without van Hecke, Grobelna, Herbots, Aelbrecht and Heyrman and van de Broek even didn't use van Gestel, despite she was there - the tigers effectively served the hosts off court (18 aces). Attack percentage 9% (!) to 58% (!).

I watched Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Romania. Honestly, neither of them deserve to play at ECh and would have certainly not got anywhere near qualifying if the tournament hadn't been expanded to 24 teams. As for the expansion, I guess it's nice for the likes of Finland and Portugal to call themselves the participants of the European Championships, but I'm not sure it means much in the grand scheme of things, except that the top teams now have to fit another couple of matches into their already overcrowded schedule.

Not to mention that SRB, NED and ITA/RUS get an extra award in having to play the World Cup immediately after the ECh, with nothing substantial on the line.

Quote from JoanaBG

I watched Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Romania. Honestly, neither of them deserve to play at ECh and would have certainly not got anywhere near qualifying if the tournament hadn't been expanded to 24 teams. As for the expansion, I guess it's nice for the likes of Finland and Portugal to call themselves the participants of the European Championships, but I'm not sure it means much in the grand scheme of things, except that the top teams now have to fit another couple of matches into their already overcrowded schedule.

Not to mention that SRB, NED and ITA/RUS get an extra award in having to play the World Cup immediately after the ECh, with nothing substantial on the line.

I think, the attendance of Finland for example is okay (not to speak about Belgium, which was totally superior in qualification now). But you are right, 24 are too many IMHO, a medium value of 20 teams (which would mean 4 pools of five teams each in final round) would be more adequate regarding quality.

rikhlyuk is playing for UKR?

Quote from charalampos

Iceland maybe was the weakest team in the qualifications and their players having the most difficult names to learn

ha. this coming from a greek!

Quote from ossubtus

rikhlyuk is playing for UKR?

Yes, she joined the team for their decisive match against Montenegro.

In the past i couldnt understand why russians use so strange letters

well, ISL has had good success with their men in football and handball, so maybe in the future the women will do better...

Quote from charalampos

Spain won Romania 3-2.

do you have a link for the video? it's not on laola yet.

i think the last matches are only at eurovolley.tv