2023 Women's Volleyball Nations League

    Quote from user

    To be fair, Poland being good isn't all that surprising. They had close matches with all top ranked teams before basically just very inconsistent and most importantly, they ended up losing all those close matches... Which, if you can battle all teams but can't get over the finish line in any instance it's just a coaching issue imo.


    Even with Turkey they lost like 10 matches In the last decade and a lot of them or tiebreaks are close 3-1s.


    This should inspire similar teams like Germany and Canada as well.

    Germany and Canada dont have bench, Poland also play mostly with same 7, but they have few more players in rotation.

    Quote from user

    To be fair, Poland being good isn't all that surprising. They had close matches with all top ranked teams before basically just very inconsistent and most importantly, they ended up losing all those close matches... Which, if you can battle all teams but can't get over the finish line in any instance it's just a coaching issue imo.


    Even with Turkey they lost like 10 matches In the last decade and a lot of them or tiebreaks are close 3-1s.


    This should inspire similar teams like Germany and Canada as well.

    It's not surprisng that they won/win. What It's surprising is that most were a sweep 3-0 againt the top teams.

    Congratulations to Polonya

    They believed in themselves and have a chance to achieve a really great result in play off 👏

    I

    Quote from user

    To be fair, Poland being good isn't all that surprising. They had close matches with all top ranked teams before basically just very inconsistent and most importantly, they ended up losing all those close matches... Which, if you can battle all teams but can't get over the finish line in any instance it's just a coaching issue imo.


    Even with Turkey they lost like 10 matches In the last decade and a lot of them or tiebreaks are close 3-1s.


    This should inspire similar teams like Germany and Canada as well.

    The problem is that Germany doesn't have a Stysiak-like monster opposite who is 203 cm and weighs in at a respectable 100 kilograms or so. Stysiak consistently smashes the ball harder than 90 km/h. This is super-heavyweight volleyball and Poland will just steamroll their opponents with such dominant displays of offensive power. I mean, just look at the numbers today. Stysiak was virtually unstoppable and carried the team in attack. She had a Boskovic/Egonu like attacking ratio with 19/35 killed balls per attempt. She also killed seemingly impossible out of system balls out of nowhere. Against a team like China this is an incredible accomplishment, imo. Stysiak had 19 pts in attack and Lukasik/Rozanski scored 19 attacking pts together. I think the wingers contributed very well, just as the setter and centers, but lets be fair to say that Stysiak was the x-factor or decisive factor which sealed the deal for Poland.


    I am sure Germany would be a powerhouse as well with the addition of a dominant scorer like Haak, Antropova or Stysiak to the team. Regarding Canada, they seem to lack a lot of depth, but as the team does possess an exceptionally promising talent on the MB position, the 208 cm tall Anna Smrek who has dominated in the NCAA, and hence they certainly could be a powerhouse in the future. Smrek (born 2003) is the daughter of NBA-player Mike Smrek and played with Dana Rettke in college as a freshman and was awarded, as a freshman when she was 17 years old and Rettke 21 yrs old, as the most outstanding player at the highest level of NCAA. For sure Canada will be dangerous in the future with the addition of Smrek. Smrek is like a 10 cm taller version of Zehra Gunes or Thaisa.


    https://women.volleybox.net/anna-smrek-p30207/clubs

    Quote from hakin12

    I think the wingers contributed very well, just as the setter and centers, but lets be fair to say that Stysiak was the x-factor or decisive factor which sealed the deal for Poland.

    Stysiak is amazing, we have solid depth and after years of drought we have really talented pool of OHs (let's be honest, at times it was horrific) - but, first, Lavarini makes a great job in terms of our overall team-level play in exploiting our greatest strength (blocking), we have great combo of great blocking and solid technical skills (and still no Wołosz, although Wenerska is great), but even more importantly - objectively, we had decent moments under Nawrocki (e.g. beating Italy at the ECH, those close games against Turkey or Serbia in OQTs), but like runnerupster said, we were completely incapable of making any relevant upsets in those matches. And knowing what girls have said about what mindset Nawrocki tried to put in his team ('those better teams are superior and we need to know our place in a hierarchy'), and what is said about Lavarini now - that is a major difference and perhaps an explanation of why we are unapologetically beating those teams now.


    So yeah, you are right that in terms of pool of talent we're a tier above those mentioned teams probably, but nonetheless it is still a pure example of what great on/off court coaching can make for the whole group. All this said while having in mind this is just VNL, but ... the felling is definitely good. :)

    Yes, the loss of Lippmann to the beach robbed Germany off an athletic hard hitter with experience, currently no such player is in sight to step in as strong opposite in Germany.

    Germany starts with all the bench players :white: In some way I like that the starters are rested after yesterday's exhausting match because we'll need them in more important matches than today, but I would have liked to see what they could do against Brazil.

    Maiara starting against Germany

    Quote from Matthias

    Not even half a set over and Heynen already got a yellow card :aww: I didn't even understand this was all about...

    I’m not watching but I’m curious why would he even get worked up enough for a card when it’s clear he doesn’t care about winning this match lol