2021 U18 Girls World Championship

    Congrats Italy! Definetly wasn't expecting much from this gen after last year ECh and the first game with Egypt, but despite not liking it very much this China-like system is proving to be succesfull. But to be fair as of right now I honestly don't see Ituma becoming a successfull OH, her passing and defending skills are just awful and I think she has a much brighter future as Opp even if she needs to put a lot of work on her technique. Viscioni on the other hand I wasn't expecting much and she impressed me, looking forward to see her as OH hopefully

    I'm not an expert of a female volleyball (well, I'm not an expert at all, but I've seen her like 12 or so times thus far, so it's just my impression based on small eye-test), but considering that Mencarelli has built a whole system around Ituma as OH, it's fair to assume she's more comfortable as a spiker from a left wing, she gives me peak Rosir Calderon from 2006-2008 period vibe in terms of combination of a strength and spike reach. I think she'll have a successful career regardless of a position, because she's a freak, to be honest, athletically (and there's always some niche for these non-receiving OHs) , but her playing as OH will always have limitations. So it's 100% correct that she should focus on improving her right-wing spiking (yeah, there's Egonu, but she should play on a position that gives her the biggest chances to succeed, not on position that her country would expect her to play), but I'm not that optimistic that she will effectively do it.


    I wonder if Italy will be able to exclude Russian OHs from a game like Brazil did in a pool phase, because if not, then with addition of Suvorova and the other MB (Sergeeva?) it will be too much too handle. Although Italy has lost a set so far in an opening game, so they shouldn't end like Poles and Serbians in some one-sided blow out. It's still a great result for Italy regardless of a final's outcome though, IMHO.


    About US, it looked that they have some upside to improve nicely and be much better 2 years from now, but it was waaay too little for this repetitive game of serve-block-Ituma of Italy.

    Quote from Realista

    I'm not an expert of a female volleyball (well, I'm not an expert at all, but I've seen her like 12 or so times thus far, so it's just my impression based on small eye-test), but considering that Mencarelli has built a whole system around Ituma as OH, it's fair to assume she's more comfortable as a spiker from a left wing, she gives me peak Rosir Calderon from 2006-2008 period vibe in terms of combination of a strength and spike reach. I think she'll have a successful career regardless of a position, because she's a freak, to be honest, athletically (and there's always some niche for these non-receiving OHs) , but her playing as OH will always have limitations. So it's 100% correct that she should focus on improving her right-wing spiking (yeah, there's Egonu, but she should play on a position that gives her the biggest chances to succeed, not on position that her country would expect her to play), but I'm not that optimistic that she will effectively do it.

    Ituma has always played as regular opposite on the right with good efficience, this is the first time she plays on the left for a prolonged time (she just played 2/3 games as OH with Club Italia last season). I think the issue here of moving her to the left was the lack of a good attacking OH in this generation, the OH in the bench are Ribechi (who's only 174 and is moving to libero), Bellia (who is a player very similar to Giuliani, tall good backrow skills but a bit lacking in attack) and Esposito (who is 2 years younger than everyone else and was just aggregated from the u16 team) so I think Mencarelli moved her to the left in order to have Viscioni on court as she always played as OPP and maybe between the two she was the one having more issues attacking from the left, and he knew Ituma could score regardless of the position. But this is just my guess, we'll see next season in Club Italia what's the plan for her considering in the team there's also Adelusi which is in a very similar situation (but not as freakishly athletic) playing sometimes on the right sometimes on the left.

    Quote from mikesevilla2021

    I agree, though while their wing spikers are a little bit weak in offense, that is compensated by their strong middles. What Russia needs is, as you mentioned, a go-to person specially for OOS plays. For Russia to win, they have to have perfect reception for the middles to work since Popova, their Opposite, is a little bit weak. I just wish, by U20 next year, the other Opposite Shyvdkia will develop into a legitimate and reliable opposite player already. I remember Akimova was very lost when she played U18 with Gorbunova and Kadochkina. But she had improved a lot when she played U20.

    Kapralova to me seems to have bigger potential on being a go-to scorer over Zamanskaia. I think the final game against Italy will be interesting, more than attacks, Russia needs to play their best blocking performance this game against Ituma to lessen her output (let's be honest, she is kinda Egonu-ing this tournament) since she's bound to get points nonetheless. They can either have really good distribution and a faster tempo so that spikers can easily kill balls or have a dominant wing spiker to help the scoring outputs of both Sergeeva and Suvorova.

    At this level, Kobzar-Suvorova setter-MB connection is very impressive and really good to watch. Russian senior NT could never :lol:

    Quote from Brazil_lover

    Brazil got a 5th place finishing. For a team that suffered the loss of Helena before the WC and the OH Luiza during the tournament, not only to mention the almost no practice or tournament before, it's quite a good position...

    Quite good generation. Too much good/great OH... Tall MBs


    The setter are still very limited imo.

    Quote from Brazil_lover

    Brazil got a 5th place finishing. For a team that suffered the loss of Helena before the WC and the OH Luiza during the tournament, not only to mention the almost no practice or tournament before, it's quite a good position...

    I wish they'd medalled, of course, but they're really good! Aline (she's only 15!), Juliana and Nicole have lots of potential. Luzia too if she can improve her attack. I'd love to see them doing even better next U20 WCH -- they're certainly better than the current crop of girls that played it earlier this year.

    This whole Serbian gen is one big mess (Uzelac and Kurtagic is exceptions), but God how bad Mandovic (the setter) is, from time to time she finish the job, but how her technique is bad and dirty, there are no words to describe it :sos:. Pretty much whole competition is low quality, main stars is missing (Fedorovtseva,,,,,,,,Ana Christina, Uzelac,......).


    Kobzar and Suvorova is the highlight from

    this competition, that connection is really amazing for this age category.

    Quote from Bogdan

    This whole Serbian gen is one big mess (Uzelac and Kurtagic is exceptions), but God how bad Mandovic (the setter) is, from time to time she finish the job, but how her technique is bad and dirty, there are no words to describe it :sos:. Pretty much whole competition is low quality, main stars is missing (Fedorovtseva,,,,,,,,Ana Christina, Uzelac,......).


    Kobzar and Suvorova is the highlight from

    this competition, that connection is really amazing for this age category.

    They probably played their best game against Brazil (or Brazil played really bad :lol::lol:), as both OH and Zelenovic were very effective. Kurtagic is really good, but she is still more a blocker than an attacker...

    It's almost too surreal watching a packed stadium like I've only imagined only the pandemic.

    Quote from bibetron

    It's almost too surreal watching a packed stadium like I've only imagined only the pandemic.

    just as surreal as watching a Russian Team that relies heavily in middle attacks.