Qualification Tournament for the European Championships 2009

Quote from Konrad

I'm not so sure. I just have hope

Stop with the unreal things I AM sure that Poland will beat Portugal, Bulgaria also... it's just the matter of class, Portugal doesn't have it, at least at this moment.

Could somebody tell Polsat's commentators how to pronounce foreign names? They are hopeless...

BULGARIA - Croatia 3:0 (25:16; 25:17; 25:11)

Bulgaria played without Plamen Konstantinov, Evgeni Ivanov and Vlado Nikolov. Matey Kaziyski and Andrey Zhekov played only the first set.

As I see, Croatia plays terribly weak in this tournament. Lost against Bulgaria was obvious, but against Israel

Good for our team I didn't watch the game because it was boring. Holland have beaten Slovenia (25-23 25-13 25-13)

Quote from superbobo

Good for our team I didn't watch the game because it was boring.

Interesting attitude .Sometimes I like when game in which Poland play is boring, cause it means that we are better and I don't have to worry about the result.

Poland-Hungary 3:0 (25-17,25-19,25-18 )

Quote from Konrad

Interesting attitude .Sometimes I like when game in which Poland play is boring, cause it means that we are better and I don't have to worry about the result.

Poland-Hungary 3:0 (25-17,25-19,25-18 )

As far as I saw there were some tiny problems in the second set when Hungary was leading 14:12 but everything is ok now after 3:0.

Konrad, Croatia plays with the junior team, that's because they are "weak". But this young team has a lot of potential.

Quote from sNeige

Konrad, Croatia plays with the junior team, that's because they are "weak". But this young team has a lot of potential.

I see, thanks

Yeah I guess people saying that differences in international volleyball are getting smaller aen't completely accurate. The winners of all the groups seem to have not even dropped a set.

I saw Holland Slovenia yesterday and it was ridiculous. In the first set the teams were almost equal, but in the second and third Holland really started serving at it was all over. That's something about modern volleyball, even if a team has decent volleyball capabilities (which Slovenia definitely has) you won't be able to show it if you can't handle the other teams serve. Third set Trommel serves like 6 aces, then Kooistra adds another 5 or so and then when the Slovenians finally get it back over the net Holland plays this relaly fast combination through the middle with Bontje and he hits the Liberoa in the face so bad that his whole face swells up and shit. You really started to feel sorry for the Slovenians at this point.

I do think that Holland has a very talented team though, they lacks experience but they're all still young and have the time to get more experienced still.

Of course there are differencies, infact much bigger than in football for example. Maybe more countries should pay attention to this sport, especially countries which don't have the best, but at least good volleyball leagues - i mean Belgium, Greece, Netherlands if you want...even Slovenia and Slovakia. They should pay attention to their national teams... for bringing up talents and their opportunity to develop.

Evgeni Ivanov (Jastrzebski Wiegel - Poland) and Vlado NIkolov (Bre Banka Lanuti Kuneo - Italy) will have a rest for the next qualification tournament in Portugal and will be replaced by Teodor Bogdanov (Levski Siconco - Bulgaria) and Danail Milushev (Turkoa - France).

The latest news (15 minutes ago) is that Kostadin Soikov (NOVA - Russia) will be replaces by 18th years old Cvetan Sokolov, who signed contract with Itas Diatec Trentino this week, for the second qualification tournament in Portugal from 23th to 25th may.

Quote from Justyna

My favourite pic of this tournament isn't hard to guess why

Why?

Maybe because of the funny expression on the faces of some players

Or maybe because they look like group of triggers in "Tombstone" movie

Quote from Justyna

Two words... AZS Częstochowa (now ex-AZS)
Nowakowski, Woicki, Gierczyński and Wika - 4 players of 'first 6' AZS in season 2007/2008

Why all the good players are leaving this team?