European Youth Olympics Festival 2022

  • I watched little bit of that game. It looked like the Italian team was better coached then the Turkish team. The Italian girls were taken their times when they were serving, while the Turkish girls were way to anxious

    Our coach is one of the worse coaches ever 🤦 I can't believe Reşat can still find a coaching Job in any NT 😒


    Based on stats overall tournament:


    Melisa seems not to improve her reception at all since last tournament. She is making it up with her attack but with this height I doubt that she will be a dominant attacker at senior level


    Berka is not performing as she was expected, Aygün Bengisu showed better performance overall.


    We still don't have a promising Opp from this generation. I don't care about getting another silver medal. I don't see anyone who could replace senior NT players anytime soon (except maybe MBs in long term)


    What happened to Uzelac? I thought she was supposed to be next big thing in Serbia🤔

  • What happened to Uzelac? I thought she was supposed to be next big thing in Serbia🤔


    She had small operation, didn't trained more than a 2 months. That was her first 2 matches after a while, she need time to go in the shape. Also Serbia played without opp this tournament and OH-s was overwhelmed.


    But is not just her, whole squad played really bad tournament, but i expected from them to be ready for the euro u19. They will play this tournament with full roster, and maybe this lost here was good thing.

  • I watched little bit of that game. It looked like the Italian team was better coached then the Turkish team. The Italian girls were taken their times when they were serving, while the Turkish girls were way to anxious

    Ituma took a century to prepare her serving and then served into net LOL.


    I didn't expect Italy to win over Türkiye in the final given their unstable passing and Ituma being a mess. But who knows Ituma can score 27 points as opp in the final, her previous performance was just terrible...


    Kudos to Viscioni who won the best opp in FIVB U18 last year and spent a whole season playing OH after, now she is the best OH of this generation. Her spiking is not that powerful but she is very versatile and fast.

  • I do think Novare made a huge mistake recruiting Ituma as a backup opp for Karakurt. That girl is not opp material and this EYOF and the coming-up CEV U19 will prove that. Poor Karakurt will have to play whole time on court because ituma is of no use as a backup opp.

    Isn't a bit too soon to call a 17 yo player useless or that she does not have abig future as opp? Yeah, her error margin is quite high but a girl who can scores 27 points in a final is not someone you can take lightly. Egonu in the U17 didnt also have much ball control but she improved a lot for the U18 and made into the senior national team the following year. Every player has their own developing trajectory. You can call them bad/good/useless when they are actually fully developed player but is it okay when they're just teens?

  • Isn't a bit too soon to call a 17 yo player useless or that she does not have abig future as opp? Yeah, her error margin is quite high but a girl who can scores 27 points in a final is not someone you can take lightly. Egonu in the U17 didnt also have much ball control but she improved a lot for the U18 and made into the senior national team the following year. Every player has their own developing trajectory. You can call them bad/good/useless when they are actually fully developed player but is it okay when they're just teens?

    You are right, it's too soon to determine that.


    TBH, I followed her game from 3 years ago. She never convinced me that she is a proper opp. This final with 27 points is the only one game that she actually did good when competing against strong team. Her performance in the semi was just catastrophic .


    If you watch her attacking from position 4, you would agree that she is a powerful weapon as OH. She could spike the ball higher and stronger from position4. I think she could be the Mihajlović of Italy one day if she keeps playing OH. Her out-of-system attack from position 4 is already better than Sylla and (possibly) Pietrini.


    Let's wait and see her performance in the CEV U19 and FIVB U20 next year. I definitely don't mind her turning into another powerful opp one day and smack me right in the face :D



  • i think Julia Ituma is a good promising player for Italy, i hope she could decided to play as a wing spiker, she just need to improve her skills as a receiver. After that there's another excellent prospect for Italy as opposite or wing spiker, is the younger Merit Edwidge, she is only 15 years old and very powerful player, she reminds me the best Cuban players of the 90's.

  • i think Julia Ituma is a good promising player for Italy, i hope she could decided to play as a wing spiker, she just need to improve her skills as a receiver. After that there's another excellent prospect for Italy as opposite or wing spiker, is the younger Merit Edwidge, she is only 15 years old and very powerful player, she reminds me the best Cuban players of the 90's.

    Yes, Merit Edwidge surprised me in the CEV U17 tournament. Even though she is relatively short as opp, only 183cm, but she shows great potential to be a good opp one day. She achieved 52% of successful attacking rate in the final round, the only OH/OPP to make it above 50%. However she is only 15 y/o.,,, I remembered ituma being a mess as a 15 y/o opp two years ago.


    I don't know much about the Cuban players of the 90's but i am fully in awe of their legendary success.


    I hope these girls stay healthy and live up to their potential one day. Before competing with Egonu, they still need to compete with Antropova first LOL. Antropova - 2003, Ituma - 2004, Edwidge - 2006, the competition is going to be wild....

  • I agree she is way better as an OH and, in fact, it is what Italy needs. With Antropova and Frosini (I know many would not agree but I believe that she can become a wonderful OPP, she's just so different from Egonu and Antropova, and reminds me of Sheilla in some sort of way). But I am glad, they using her as OPP now because even if she ends up as an OH, there are rotations where she will have to attack from position 2 and that's when sometimes Italy gets into trouble.

    Tbh more than her receiving skills, she really needs to improve her defense. Kosheleva and Branka are bad passers but their defense is decent.

  • i think Julia Ituma is a good promising player for Italy, i hope she could decided to play as a wing spiker, she just need to improve her skills as a receiver. After that there's another excellent prospect for Italy as opposite or wing spiker, is the younger Merit Edwidge, she is only 15 years old and very powerful player, she reminds me the best Cuban players of the 90's.

    She was, to me at least, thr true MVP and best OPP of both thr Wevza and the Euro U17. I mean she is the only OH/OPP with spiking success rate over 50% and also had good number in serve and blocking.


    Grozer was good and scored lots of points but her efficiency was nowhere near Merit's.