Serbia NT 2020

  • One great throwback in these quarantine days



  • It was known Stefana was going to skip one year after the Tokyo 2020 and most probably have a baby. Now that Tokyo 2020 is going to be held in 2021 and there isn’t any rumor about her, do you guys think she decided to get pregnant now and come back second half of next season? If there will be any season anywhere of course.

  • Really doubt it, but who knows. On one hand, she has an example of Brakocevic who played in Rio only some 3 months after giving birth, but she was (predictably) a non-factor there and Terzic has said many times that cutting Ana Bjelica off was one of the toughest decisions of his career.

  • And one more interesting interview in a row from OSSRB (Odbojkaški savez Srbije - Volleyball Federation of Serbia)



    You have english subtitle on video.


    Enjoy :drink:

  • Happy to hear that She would love to come to Italy and She said that She has 1 more year with Ecz. And She is more than happier to be in Ecz all this year. But for next steps in her future She will thinking about it after end of the next season.


    Question was "Who is for her best foreign setter"

    And the best setter for her is Wolosz, She praised her and She said that She is phenomenal setter.

  • Yes! I remember her in that podcast that somebody used to post here, sooo shy, like she doesn't get it why people want to talk to her :heart:

  • I have always said (to anyone who wants to hear me out!:lol:) that I don't know of any other example of another athlete who is undoubtedly among the very best in their sport who has so little vanity and so little arrogance. In fact, she's going a little bit too much in self-effacement, but okay.


    I also like that she was honest when she said that Eda and Milena are the toughest 2 blockers to pass.:rose:


    Also, I liked the interviewer, and his questions. I especially liked that he pointed out the fact about her and Kosheleva and consecutive European MVPs, as well as the fact that in 12 months between autumn 2013 and autumn 2014 she played for all categories (to me it always seemed mind-boogling that she was MVP in Junior European Championship in July 2014 and 3 months later she was 6th best scorer at senior World Championship, which was her debut!:white::cheesy:).

  • I hope that in next weeks we will see more of this interviews. I am sure that one with Maja would be interesting and maybe with some formers national team members or with Terzic :cheesy:


    Just like Janko already said, i "rewrite" all.

    So beautiful to see sportswoman like she is. :rose:

  • Thank you,but i already watch this one, i more think on the one like this with Rasic, Veljkovic, Boskovic in OSSRB production and that duration.

  • I have to share with you one great online seminar about "Break point" from Terzic in production of OSSRB.



    link is there but duration of seminar is about 3 hours  :obey:and ofc on Serbian language and dont have subtitle.

    This seminar was intended for volleyball coaches but because of wide interest OSSRB has decided that share on youtube via Live for all others who isn't coach but want to participate. I try to share with you the best parts and most important sentence from Terzic. He said some great thing and share with all of us some details about tactic, strategy and his philosophy about volleyball at all, in "one word" this was contentful and very interesting seminar.

    Main lecturer: Zoran Terzic

    Other participant:

    Zoran Gajic (president of OSSRB)

    Milan Vujačić (internationa competitions coordinator)

    Bojan Perovic (statistician of women national team)

    First part of the seminar is lecture by Terzic, and the second part is QA form with other participant and Terzic or discussion form.

    This is the topic of the seminar and summerise of the same:

    "Break point" (serve, block, defence in court and attackers protection)

    At the begining of the seminar he shared information about side-out and counter attack in percent of succes on the last 2 biggest world competition.


    Rio 2016 WCH 2018
    side out 46% 45%
    counter 52% 46%


    I in next 30,40 minutes i will translate best parts and share. :drink:

  • Service:

    It stands out as one of the crucial things needed for quality service - the psychological aspect and stability of the individual. Each player requires at least two variations on the theme of service (jump / float, long / short, .....). By far the largest number of services by analogy and the highest number of break points Serbia has in position 1 (when the setter - mainly Maya - is on service). (Detailed stastic infromation is on video from 19:30-20:30, first one is from WCH 2018, and second one is from Rio2016). He describes her(Maja) service as extremely high-quality, stable, techno-tactically versatile and as a service that can hit any part of the court, with numerous variations. He cites the strongest block on the network (Mihajlovic, Rasic, Boskovic) as an additional factor for success in that position. He added that some tests and measurements of the pulse in the player, especially with Milena Rasic, showed a sudden jump in the pulse during the performance of the service, the results say that the values are higher than those during the constant jumps and movements on the net, which she as a middle blocker undoubtedly has. Position 4 stands out as the weakest in terms of counterattack (Then Tijana is on serve, in the front line is for example Busa-Veljkovic-Maja) and thus explains Tijana's complete freedom to perform her strongest service, at the risk of error, but also describes Tijana as a player who does not feels the pressure and can perform his best service at any time (he cites the semi-finals of OG 2016 against USA and the match ball as an example, I would list as one of the matches against China WGP 2017 the match for the third place and the end of sets 1 and 3). Explaining Brankica and Tijana transition from a jump to a float service in 2018, due to longer competitions, more games against weaker selection and unnecessary power spending of players in them, the planning decision was to insist more throughout the tournament on float compared to jump services . He has the opinion, it is not smart to advise the player at crucial moments to just put in the service, he thinks that can be contraproductive.

  • Block:

    He stands out as probably the most difficult element of volleyball, it depends heavily on the talent or feel of the block by player himself. He mentions that volleyball has become much faster in the last couple of years, points out winning USA gold at WCH 2014 as a turning point, when they implemented that super-fast game mode and surprised the selections, many of them failed to adapt and USA can be said won the title relatively easily, but also points out that the Serbian national team has twice won in the next two big competitions (WC 2015, RIO 2016). He is against the fact that such a volleyball system is implemented at any cost in every team, because there are simply players that cant fit into such a system and do not see the need for force (sees no reason to accelerate each player individually).

    He say that these game modes, looking good, work almost 100% on ideal reception, but the results show that they have big problems against strong server teams and due to poor reception. Also, a large number of unprecise sets is highlighted as a disadvantage and consequently a large number of balls placed, as well as a very small number of attacks in parallel, especially from zone 4. Against fast-paced teams, his strategy is as follows: it facilitates the job of middle blockers on opponent perfect reception, rejecting the prediction option where the opponent setter will play, but a series of pre-arranged combinations of jumping into the block and closing certain attacks and zones are established. The middle blocker never stays in the middle, as an example states with the videos the block setting (Alma - zone 2, Slide - Pipe - zone 4, video examples is on video from 35:40-41:15). He cites the triple block as an element of the game that will be increasingly important in the world of women's volleyball, and points out the USA W national team as the best in that element, and says that they are almost as good as men, says that they are ahead of everyone in that element, and China after them. Russia and maybe after Russia we are but he is not happy with this element and want to work on it in the future. Video examples is on video from 55:50 - 1:01:00.

  • Defense in court,counter-attack and attacker protection:

    He cites defense in the court as the element that he likes least to do, but also considers it very important and thinks it is pointless to work on the block and not on the defense or vice versa. He emphasizes the counterattack as the biggest asset of our national team. He explains how he insists on extending our counter-attack from antenna to antenna in all possible situations, cites as an example when Tijana Boskovic defends in zone 1 and when she adds that free ball, the middles is obliged to pull the slide attack whatever it was a middle, by the way, while the clip is commenting on May's laziness in protecting the attacker, but says she attributes it to years lol, the way she comment her it is to funny but i cant unfortunately convey that. Video with examples is from 1:07:57 - 1:09:50. The dilemma is whether a ball that crosses the net after a good service will attack or add a setter, the command to his players is that in the case of a setter in the front line, always add to it, if positions 1,6,5 are in progress, attack, although he admits that this order is generally not respected. He emphasized the next thing as very important, he also said that whoever does not respect it can count on getting out of the game. Balls from the last meteres of the court, when someone sets that balls, whoever is doing it, the ball has to be high, close to the net, and it has to fall on our side of the court (if hypothetically someone would let it to fall, it must fall into the court) the ball may cross the net, it is not a terrible mistake, but it must not be far from the net or out of range of antennas. Tijana and Brankica have obligation is to strike the ball properly at the cost of a mistake (we could all already hear it in time outs).

  • Bogdan very very nice of you for the translations. I’ve only just read these, trying to absorb what I can. will watch the video later.

  • After his extensive presentation on the topic, questions from other seminar participants / listeners followed. I will single out some of the most interesting.

    1. In the event of contact of the setter with the first ball, who is obliged to set the ball?

    Terzic's response: "The trend is to do libero, but I don't necessarily agree with that, I don't think there is a need for it (unless you are Italy so you have a libero who raises alma to the middle blocker (cf. De Gennaro)), I criticize the whole volleyball scene of Serbia that middle blocker can't play with their fingers, including myselfe, because I work with them also, I think in that case it would be wiser to have the ball set by the middle blocker if the ball is within three meters of the net, or if it is out of range this is done by OH which one who is the back line.

    2. Would you be able to compare the organization of work from the youngest to the senior national selections in Turkey, Russia and Serbia.

    Turkey obviously has the best organization and big investments, but I don't think it should be crucial (finances) in making future top players. He points out that Russia is catastrophic in this regard, citing the example of Dynamo Moscow as one of the largest clubs there with a large budget but as a club with no junior selection. The only bright spot of Russian volleyball, in terms of throwing out new toys, I see in Nikolai Karpol (citing Parubets as one of the best OH currently). I am worried about the situation in Serbian volleyball, I think that the level of our games will decline in the coming years, the results may not be, but the level certainly, since 2009 and Milena Rasic we do not have players of that caliber in any position from our volleyball school, I do not count Tijana and Brankica because they are from Republika Srpska.



    Some random situation from the seminar:

    1. In one moment he cited an interesting situation that happened after a long and arduous training in Fener, when Bahar Toksoy approached him and said that they were the same (of course he and Giu), in perseverance and stubbornness to run out of ideas, the only difference is in that Giu focuses on the opposing team and how to exploit their weaknesses, while Terzic focuses on his team and tries to establish a model of the game (with adjustments, but minimal, relative to the opponent).

    2. He must have mentioned Maja at least 10 times, both in the "negative" and in the positive way, citing her magic, but in each of these comments there was an obvious special relationship between the two, and that is great these 2 work together for more than 17 year with just one year of break.


    There were certainly some more interesting details, I certainly forgot something, but after 3 hours of listening and almost as much compiling and translating, you won't mind.

  • What Bahar said is very true. Gio modifies the team plan a lot depending on the opponent whereas Terzic sticks with the system he created.


    Thanks for translation Bogdan !

  • Also few more interesting thing that i forgot to mentioned last night.

    - He mentioned that Maja was best server in CEV CL 2003/04 with her jump serve, he added that when explaining why she is such a good server.

    - Also he talked how players in younger selection have to play in different positions, not that at age of 12 and think that they are opposite hitter, because they are not.

    That was answer on question how to choose in younger generation who should be OH from zone 2, and who should be OH from zone 5(or how he call from/to setter OH). First sentence from him was that that question is stupid, he is sorry but he must to say that, as reason for saying that he said that later in national team because of that he get it semi players.