Serbia NT 2019

    Malagurski posted this: ( I used a translator)

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    1. HELLO EVERYONE.
    2. After so many posts, comments, questions, and even looks, commenting behind my back ... maximum. I will not try to be brief, because it is impossible, it is more important for me to explain the essence in the right way. First of all to my fans, those who have followed my career from the beginning, and ultimately, friends. Why am I out of the field, where am I, am I fine, did I finish my career, am I sick, etc etc… I'm alive! :) I'm thinking about where to start, which is the hardest thing to do realistically, and then everything will go its own way. Elem..It's something that goes back a couple of years. Unfortunately for my family and me, something we could never expect happened, but there it is. 2016 was the hardest for me, and I secretly hoped it would be the most beautiful. Olympic year, I love volleyball, despite 2 knee surgeries, more precisely 3, I kept coming back, then shoulder pain, and joint distortion. I kind of "survived" it all and came back, sometimes stronger, sometimes not, but I came back. This time it was a little different
    3. In preparation for that 2016 Olympics, I felt phenomenal, strong, confident, playing both receivers and correctors, being one of the most adept on the team. And I secretly hoped to find myself on the 12-player roster, and got another look at my team. What happened in the end, I don't know, maybe I missed it at the end of the preparations, but I didn't go to my eyes. Why am I saying this, not to criticize anyone but to start from somewhere. In parallel with these preparations, that is to say, during the same time, I had been in contact with my sister for almost 24 hours, which was a much bigger problem than my eyes had left. A health problem, which later nailed a year for a wheelchair. Will you believe me if I say it all at once? There you are. It began with a banal distortion of the wrist, continued with a bend of the knee, then both legs, and with the deprivation of strength in the legs, increasingly irregular gait. The inability to control them, to live normally. It all hit us hard, but the solution came up. * CONTINUED IN COMMENT


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    1. Agony begins, with another intervention, and a doctor saying that is his maximum. Instead of being healthy, Sonja returns home in a wheelchair at the age of 30, on her feet. Then begins the recovery process, and all kinds of periods. And I still looked great, played great, acted great. Bravo for me, right? NO WAY. I managed to endure everything, my head was hardwired to endure everything, to fight, with myself, not to seek help from anyone, because that would mean that I was weak. And if I was weak, no one else would take be strong. Ok, I'll do it. I made it all season, I was in the top 5 points of Italy. Wow. The team started, then the pain and the new injury. Well the signature for Bergamo: Italy again. <3i my agony begins, to everything from before. Losing a kilo, a bad game, a bad season, my self-confidence is zero, I find myself misunderstood by many, I find myself losing dear people, friends, I come across serious criticism, problems. And why all that? Because I was silent. Yes, my dear, the bottom line is that I went downhill when the body began to betray me. When he was bored with all that was going on inside me, he started boycotting me. Multihormonal imbalance, insulin resistance, loss of kylazia, muscle. The point of everything.
    2. Because I was always silent, silent, hoping that everything would somehow sort out, settle, calm down, balance. But it didn't, because I always did the same thing, made the same mistakes. Cutala. And so, I think I answered somewhat, why I am "gone." :) On the field I think. I am currently in the process of recovering myself, my body, my head. :) And I think what I've written is one big step. I was encouraged by 3 things. Today's picture that my sister posted where ONLY stands, and I wrote in I believe in miracles, and a heated discussion with me 2 very important people. So, do everything but don't hear it. Do not think that you are the strongest in the world when it is okay to be weak and ask for help:) You are not aware of what silence and fears can do to you. Not good. When asked, will I play volleyball again? I don't know, It'll show body, and time. To make it easy is not. But the desire exists.
    3. Until then, and forever - my goal though is to live a healthy and normal life. Big kiss from me :)
    5. After painstaking visits to our doctors (I do not want to go into detail, believe us), we came to a doctor from Hungary who operated our Subotican, who had something similar, and to whom Novak Djokovic provided us with surgery. She is a great girl today, a beautiful girl full of life, and I salute her so much! He scheduled surgery, some of those malformations they created as a spider web around Sonja's spine, and disrupted her blood vessels and proper functioning. If you believe me, I don't even know the diagnosis and the name of it all today. After completing my commitments to the national team, I went to my Montichiari club at the time and played phenomenal there. I found myself in a beautiful environment, focused on volleyball and glittering in the Italian Series A. I got messages, how I look, how I shine, how I play great, and just keep going. The real truth is I was falling apart. Emotionally. A difficult time for my family. At the end of December, surgery was scheduled, all agreed, we are pleased, because Sonja will continue her life normally. I'm on my way to Serbia for a Catholic Christmas, and we should have celebrated it in the circle of family and then return to my obligations. Landing, I'm getting a message that the surgery has become complicated, that my spine is swollen, and that the doctor wants Sonja to be kept under observation. Juice. I arrive in Subotica, get ready, and leave with my best friend, who drives me, to Budapest. There I find my sister, who is down and down, motionless. Even more juice. She's crying, she's scared, and I'm just like all the time. After a few hours, I head back to Subotica and only then start to cry, and release the resistance I held for her.

    Let me summarize it:


    She's talking about what's been going on with her and why she's not playing volleyball at the moment.

    - It all started in 2016, which she hoped would be the best year of her life, but it turned out to be the worst. She really wanted to play at the Olympics, but ultimately didn't make the cut, which was a big disappointment (she's not blaming anyone for that, BTW), but then something much worse happened. Her sister suddenly developed a medical problem with her legs, which left her unable to walk. It had something do with her spine, as they found out eventually. Doctors weren't all that helpful, but in the end, they got in touch with a girl from Subotica (her hometown) who had the same problem and was successfully operated by surgeon in Hungary.

    - The surgery was scheduled for the end of December, but unfortunately, it wasn't successful and her sister was left paralyzed from the waist down. She had to be operated again some time later, but it didn't go much better and the doctor said there wasn't anything he could do anymore. Her sister was bound to a wheelchair and there was long recovery ahead of her. (As I understand, she still can't walk.)

    - All that time, Sanja was trying to put on a brave face and channel everything through her performance on the volleyball court. She had a very good season, was among the top 5 scorers of the Italian league, everyone was telling her how great she played and how great she looked. But the truth was that she going through emotional hell that nobody knew about because she didn't want to burden her family even more, so she kept everything inside and never told anyone just how much she was hurting.

    - The next season everything changed. She signed with Bergamo, she hoped she would continue playing well, but it all went downhill. All that stress took its toll and her body started to give up on her. She was getting injured, was losing weight, couldn't recover her muscle mass, had no stamina. As a consequence, her performance dropped down a lot. No one could understand why she was playing so poorly, people were very critical of her, there were many misunderstandings with people close to her, some even turned their backs on her. Eventually, she was diagnosed with severe hormonal imbalance and had to stop playing volleyball.

    - She wants to encourage people not to make the same mistake she did, but to openly talk about their problems and seek help instead of keeping everything to themselves until it's too late and they've caused damage to their own body and mind.

    - Currently, she's going through a process of recovery, both physical and mental, and she doesn't know how long it's going to take. She would love to play volleyball professionally again, but she simply doesn't know when and if she'll be physically fit and ready enough for that.

    Oh, girl. :( That was so tough to read and I can relate to so many things.

    I think we often forget that these players have lives outside the volleyball court and all sorts of things that can be affecting them, that we don't know anything about. I remember how critical I was of her during her season in Bergamo and yet I had no idea what she was going through at the time.

    And to think how heartbreaking it must have been for her to deal with so much personal drama and on top of it keep getting cut off the NT at the last moment, time and again...


    She deserves all the happiness in the world and I truly hope she'll find her way again. In the end, there are things more important than volleyball.

    World Cup wide roster:


    http://worldcup.2019.fivb.com/…/srb%20serbia/team_roster


    No Terzic, Mihajlovic and Boskovic.

    Maja is on the roster, but I guess we all already know she`s not going.


    The results here does not matter as it will be another VNL basically, and how stupid to have such a long tournament with simply nothing on the line. But it should be a great experience for Mirkovic and for everyone else to play without Mihajlovic/Boskovic. And if Bjelica goes, we will see what she can deliver. I also don`t find it is necessary to send Veljkovic.

    Another one :cup:


    This ECH was great. I personally felt like the level of play was even higher than in the WCH.


    Terzic was able to give every player some playing time.


    I think the revelation of the tournament for Serbia was Mina Popovic. Her starting spot was not locked but she truly showed she is above Aleksic, and her connection with Maja was better than with Veljkovic. I was super worried about Stevanovic not returning, but now I honestly don`t know who I would pick as the 3rd middle ( Mina Popovic actually showed she could even be starting). I`m assuming Aleksic is going to the WC, so I want to see what she can do, let`s not forget she was the best blocker in VNL.


    Before the tournament started we did not know who OH2 starter would be, but I think Busa is #1 right now. She`s got a lot more confident and she delivers exactly they need. Of course she will not always be perfect, but in the final when Milenkovic came in she did a nice job for mostly of the time, and this is because she just got back, after 1 more season she will get back to where she was, and she will be a solid backup. And there`s still Blagojevic, unfortunately she was unable to play in the finals. But Serbia was 3 solid options, that`s why Terzic has even the luxury of taking Mihajlovic out when needed. Lazovic will take over after Tokyo.


    Pusic had some struggles during VNL, but I think she was very solid here. Of course S.Popovic will be the one in Tokyo.


    I know Bjelica had that terrible game against France, but she had some moments too. Against Bulgaria she did even better than Boskovic. I liked the few I saw of Mirkovic and I`m assuming she`s going to the WC, so this is a great experience for her, same for Bjelica.



    one more thing... a lot of people always say what would Serbia do without Mihajlovic and Boskovic.


    Interesting fact: I could be wrong but I think Boskovic scored only 2 points in the 5set, and they were the first 2 points of the game for them.

    Their come back happened with Boskovic and Maja on the bench.


    This final against Turkey was everything that Serbia could have asked for......

    I was a bit worried about this season, because I wasn't sure if they would be all in mentally after becoming the world champions. And it turned out to be true, a lot of them said they indeed had trouble motivating themselves. Also, several long time players left the team, which I didn't expect and I don't think we'll ever truly get to the bottom of it, which must have affected the team chemistry.

    But in the end, the two main goals this season (Olympic qualification and the Euro title defence) were achieved, even though the team never played more than 75-80% of their abilities on average (which was to be expected, for the reasons mentioned above), so they should feel pretty good about themselves.


    What I liked about this ECh compared to WCh was that it was much more of a team effort. This time you very rarely felt the tactics amounted to nothing more than "Give the ball to Tijana and get the job done", everyone was involved. It's not that Tijana was bad, far from it, it's that it wasn't necessary for her to go full beast mode all the time. Apart from that terrible SF, Brankica had a great tournament and a lot of times she was the go-to player instead of Tijana. I don't know what I like better about her, her crushing attacks from the back row or those lacer-precise tips when everyone expects a huge spike. <3 Maja was making her MBs busy and they delivered, and even Buša and Blagojević got their fair share of action in attack.

    I agree that Mina Popović had her big breakthrough at this event. She reminds of Nataša Krsmanović, not in their play style as they're obviously very different kinds of players, but their demeanour and the way they carry themselves on the court. They're not flashy, they're rarely in the center of attention, but they get a hell of a job done. Terzić always insisted that Nataša's biggest problem was that she didn't believe in herself enough and it's time the same with Mina, but IMO that started to change as the tournament went on and her play was getting better and better, she was clearly feeling more confident and you could tell she was starting to believe that she deserves to be there. Hopefully she'll continue going in the same direction. She doesn't have the advantage in sheer height, but her timing in blocking is excellent, and if she continues to work hard and improve, she'll be right there alongside Rašić and Veljković.


    Now, some negative points. The team's inability to close out sets was really frustrating. I think that basically in every single game there was at least one set where they either threw away a really big lead or failed to seize the opportunity and make a difference when the momentum switched to their side. That's something to be worked on for the next season, when big things await. Also, they were leaking service errors again, which I hoped we had left in the past.

    I was expecting Lazović to have a bigger role after her impressive summer in VNL, but it's clear that Terzić doesn't trust her enough yet. And to be fair, when she got the chance against France, she didn't use it. Still, she'll have plenty of opportunities in the future and this was certainly another learning experience for her. It's similar with Maja Aleksić.


    And finally, a BIG shout-out to Silvija Popović - her son started school last week (God, time does fly, it feels like yesterday that Terzić said she was skipping the 2012 NT season due to "personal issues"), and she wasn't there to be with him on his first day. That's quite a sacrifice and I'm so glad she was rewarded in the end!

    I think Busa could and should play in a better league next season. But I wonder if it was Terzic's idea to have her and S.Popovic playing together. The level in Romenia is low...( Or maybe not so low, Albja beat Galatasary ). But Busa and S. Popovic will develop a great chemistry together.

    Did Serbia used to have a MB named Maja? Like only a year or two ago, during my time. She always scared me, and for some reason it's bugging me what happened to her. I think she also played on one of those big name Turkish teams :sos:

    No, I know her. I’m pretty sure her name was Maja, and she looked tough. When Serbia were on serve she would put her hands on her head and the way she surveyed the court was intimidating

    Ah, It was Maja Poljak, apparently Croatian. I could have sworn I remembered her playing against Japan, but I don't think I've ever seen Croatia play Japan


    Edit: She played with Dinamo Moscow against the NEC Red Rockets at the Club Worlds in 17. Oops , no, not that. What a mystery.

    Yes that was it


    Sorry for the intrusion