2022 FIVB World Championship - POL/SLO

    Quote from Realista

    It's quite funny to remind myself that a year ago people were saying that Leal shouldn't be a starter in favor of Douglas, and now he single-handedly leads his team to WCH semifinal.

    Nice that you noticed that this was a year ago. He did not play like this in the Olympics. In fact it was Douglas who almost saved Brazil's ass in the bronze medal match in Tokyo.

    Quote from Realista

    It's quite funny to remind myself that a year ago people were saying that Leal shouldn't be a starter in favor of Douglas, and now he single-handedly leads his team to WCH semifinal.

    I think Douglas should've been given a spot in the starter team, no matter the spot, for what he did in 2018 and his club season before Tokyo. He has/had the best reception out of all starters (aside from Borges). Leal had a mostly off year, so naturally I wish he had been tried there -- but that might've been due to Bruno's setting too lol

    Folks, I was referring just more to the fact that 27yo Douglas retired and 34yo Leal thrives as a leader of this team now, than to some post-factum revisionism.


    Damn, this game against the United States was entertaining. We have had world-class middle blockers' lineup for quite some time now, and that's probably a first that important game that we won based on our superiority at the centre of the net: both Bieniek, although over-utilized in the latter part of the game, and Kochanowski, were fantastic and head and shoulders above their counterparts at the other side of the net. In terms of pressure and the attention that they've received, that was probably very difficult experience for these less experienced guys on the NT level (Janusz, Semeniuk, Śliwka), so that's my explanation of why Semeniuk flopped today (and resurged in tiebreak when we finally found some flow). From the American perspective, it may be the second-last chance for some major NT title for some players (since they've won only World League and World Cup in this lineup), and while they were quite unlucky draw-wise, it was also very mediocre performance from both DeFalco and the whole MBs group, and that's what made the difference, because this game was definitely winnable for the USA.


    I'm quite confident that we'll advance to the final, but the last thing I'd do is to disregard Brazil. The other semi seems to be like a 50/50 matchup despite the last year's success of one team against the other.

    it was so nervous match but finally we beat USA team:obey:

    What was stupid for me that Grbic made double sub in tie break in 12-10 and Łomacz set ball to Bieniek for double block and than set to weak Kaczmarek and he was blocked, but ok, at least we won:S

    the second set could have been the USA but they couldn’t get the point at 23-22, which would have given them 24-22. At times, the ball control in that set just wasn’t there. The 24-24 point when the USA had two free ball chances but could not control the ball well enough and it turned into a Poland point.

    Poland is just a nightmare matchup for the USA. So many players play there for the USA, it just shows the level is really high and that the matches with them are usually long and drawn out. 2018 USA loses in 5 in World Champs, 1-3 against them this year in VNL and World Champs.

    Looking at the rankings, USA is probably about ranked in the right spot. Can surprise people but competitive against slightly stronger teams.

    Still margin for error in this sport is just really tight right now.

    Brazil :super:

    Lucarelli :super: