Eurovolley 2023

    Italy looking super well now

    Sntropova amazing player


    Even if the opponents arr weak...in 2021 they struggled with those minor teams

    Quote from side.out

    According to volleyball.it, Orthmann suffered a very serious knee injury and it seems like she'll miss not only the rest of the 2023, but maybe the whole next season. Poor girl, very sorry about that.

    However the news says they're still waiting for the results of medical exams, so there might still be some hope. She wasn't on crutches today on a media event which should be a good sign...

    I'm not sold on this team yet. Obviously these aren't probing challenges, so I shouldn't focus on every single detail of these pool stage matches, but just like against Romania I did see a couple of things that really hasn't convinced me. Filtering out all of the positive, we saw a little bit more of Egonu tonight.

    Quote from Matthias

    However the news says they're still waiting for the results of medical exams, so there might still be some hope. She wasn't on crutches today on a media event which should be a good sign...

    How important is Orthmann for Germany? Do you think Sweden with Haak and AZE with Rahimova might have a decent chance to defeat them without Orthmann on court? Before this tournament I didnt believe they had a real chance to prevail against Germany, but now these games might become interesting.


    On the one hand, Orthmann is a very skilled player, but I remember Germany played competitive against Brazil with their reserves in the VNL and might have sufficient depth in their roster to overcome this deficit without any significant wounds.

    Quote from hakin12

    How important is Orthmann for Germany? Do you think Sweden with Haak and AZE with Rahimova might have a decent chance to defeat them without Orthmann on court? Before this tournament I didnt believe they had a real chance to prevail against Germany, but now these games might become interesting.


    On the one hand, Orthmann is a very skilled player, but I remember Germany played competitive against Brazil with their reserves in the VNL and might have sufficient depth in their roster to overcome this deficit without any significant wounds.

    I'm pretty sure AZE will win tomorrow. OTOH I'm confident we'll beat Sweden even without Orthmann, apart from Haak they just don't have enough quality yet.


    With or without Orthmann I expect Germany to be eliminated by SRB/POL in 1/8 finals :( Only if we manage to beat AZE we could have a better chance, but also Belgium wouldn't be an easy opponent.

    Quote from side.out

    Not a bad effort from Sweden, but once Turkey shook off the rust it went all downhill for them. Again, it's too early to call, but from what I've seen a lot of the Turkish chances to get the job done revolves around how the OH unit (Karakurt above all but to a lesser extent it may be valid to the whole unit) will hold up both on offence and defence. Should they struggle a bit, they would be forced to rely a bit too much on Vargas and that can be a problem. Curious to see if there will be some sort of relay between Şahin and Özbay too.


    I didn't see much of Serbia, but from the few bits I saw they didn't look bad at all. Sort of a Monday Night Volleyball coming up against Poland it seems.

    Nuh I definitely disagree, turkey has two top MB who can score a lot. When outsides can't score, they can still win with Vargas and MBs. Indeed for last 3-4 years we almost always have middles second most scorer. Derya was the only one who couldn't score well today but her reception was surprisingly good.


    I think Şahin is doing a great job so far. Her block presence makes a big difference and she is not any worse than Cansu technically. Cansu only has more experience so she could be useful in case things get too tight at a tiebreaker

    Oh my! Azerbaijan might be the underdog of the group. Not sure what happened by everyone in their team looked very hyped, especially the middles and Samodova.


    Also their new coach (ex GS coach) is probably the best Turkish coach and his signatures are good serves/defense. That's why I think they were missing a lot of serves and won't be surprised if they challenge someone in a good day, when all their serves are placed in.


    I also noticed that he was asking the setter to play a bit faster but not sure if she can make it and also whether their wings are able to hit such balls, will be interesting to see their development. But in overall, I think I have not seen them this happy and enjoying on the court, well done.


    With this, I am getting worried about Sweden. I hope the wings will do their best to keep them in top 4, the level seems very close between all others except the top 2 of the group.

    I think Sweden's chance to advance into the 1/16th final is to defeat Czech Republic provided both of them beats Greece. Just as Matthias said before, Germany is presumably too strong and besides that, Azerbadjan is better as well and forget about placing above Turkey. Of course Greece could, at least in theory, defeat both Sweden and Czech Republic, but it would be an eye-raising surprise as I consider them as the worst team in this group on paper.

    Anne Hölzig replaces Hanna Orthmann for the rest of ECH, so apparently it's allowed to make changes in the roster in case of injury :white:


    DVV still doesn't give an exact diagnosis, they just say Orthmann has to finish the tournament due to "knee problems" and the exams showed that she can't play right now.

    Btw, not sure if anyone mentioned it but seems like Swedish setter, Vilma Julevik is still without a contract for the club season. It makes me really sad to see what girls are trying to achieve on the court and meanwhile Swedish league and sponsors literally suck and players suffer from this level of amateurship.

    Quote from serdar

    Nuh I definitely disagree, turkey has two top MB who can score a lot. When outsides can't score, they can still win with Vargas and MBs. Indeed for last 3-4 years we almost always have middles second most scorer. Derya was the only one who couldn't score well today but her reception was surprisingly good.


    I think Şahin is doing a great job so far. Her block presence makes a big difference and she is not any worse than Cansu technically. Cansu only has more experience so she could be useful in case things get too tight at a tiebreaker

    Playing a lot with the MB implies a good passing though. Cebecioğlu and Karakurt weren't bad against Sweden (their reception was around 50% if I'm not wrong) and of course Vargas is there to bail the team out, but it can be risky if the OH unit doesn't pass good, because in that case there won't be a lot of space for plays to the middle and Vargas would be forced to attack most of the time. I'm sure Santarelli has thought of everything but I still think the key is there.

    During the DOL for this tournament, each host nation was allowed to pick one opponent for their preliminary pool, and Germany chose Azerbaijan which I found weird already back then. I think they'll painfully regret that tonight :gone:

    Quote from Matthias

    During the DOL for this tournament, each host nation was allowed to pick one opponent for their preliminary pool, and Germany chose Azerbaijan which I found weird already back then. I think they'll painfully regret that tonight :gone:

    Idk what were the other options byt back then a good pick as azerbaijan decreased a lot her level without rahimova,they were playing poorly without her as korea without kim

    she was already retired

    Quote from Jules

    Idk what were the other options byt back then a good pick as azerbaijan decreased a lot her level without rahimova,they were playing poorly without her as korea without kim

    she was already retired

    Well the likes of Switzerland, BIH, Finland, Slovenia would have been a more secure choice than AZE. Those teams also can be somewhat dangerous on a good day, but certainly not like AZE when they have all their best players available which is the case now.

    Quote from Meatballs

    Btw, not sure if anyone mentioned it but seems like Swedish setter, Vilma Julevik is still without a contract for the club season. It makes me really sad to see what girls are trying to achieve on the court and meanwhile Swedish league and sponsors literally suck and players suffer from this level of amateurship.

    read somewhere that they told the VB program of Sweden that they're not going to the Olympics so what's the point? ;( they'd give them the funding and support IF they are a contender for the Olympics.

    Quote from Rhaemon

    read somewhere that they told the VB program of Sweden that they're not going to the Olympics so what's the point? ;( they'd give them the funding and support IF they are a contender for the Olympics.

    It a chicken-egg situation. Noone wants to invest their lifes on something where it is extremely uncertain if they will make a living out of it. Haak and Lazic sisters broke this a bit. After the last ECH, there were a lot of kids registering to volleyball teams for training for example because the sport became visible to them. But training twice a week, only 4 hours in most clubs, these kids will never reach to that level unless they play in volleyball gymnasium here (taking only 10 players every year). Even the pro players have weird contracts where they are only paid some percentage of their working time (so rest is covered by their actual work, such as working in Volvo). There are many more reasons I can explain here. But with all those circumstances, it is natural that talented kids invest their time on sports where they can actually make money and volleyball is left with only a few where they train bad. So if they want Olympics, Swedish volleyball federation should become more attractive and introduce some major investors/sponsors (such as Volvo, Ikea, Spotify etc.)


    P.s. Besides all these terrible conditions, most youth teams are coached by players from senior teams, playing in Division 1-2 and it is very difficult to get education related to coaching, scouting etc. in Sweden (happening very rarely in weird places).