Katarina Barun to Ageo Medics (JPN).
Has she cured her fear of flying?
Posts by Matthias
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And Dresden joins the list: Piia Korhonen still hasn't recovered from the ankle injury she suffered in EL F4 (that's almost 4 months ago
) and is going to miss the beginning of the season at least. -
The semis are wide open. Anything can happen.
While I basically agree on that in women's volleyball overall, I just don't see the Dutch beating the best version of Serbia. The other match is much harder to predict and pretty much 50:50 for me even though Italy won the preliminary match.
Making a rather bold guess I have this feeling that we'll have the same final match as in Rio 2016 and it might very well have the same result as back then too. And the Dutch are probably going to repeat their rank of Rio too, I'm sorry but I don't see them beating any of the other three teams. Not impossible, but for me not likely...
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Injury worries even before the start of the season:
In Erfurt, their top transfer Noora Kosonen suffered ACL tear and is done for the season. They're currently checking options for signing a replacement.
In Schwerin, Marie Schölzel's ankle injury is quite serious. The first doctor who examined her in the hospital even said she can't play volleyball anymore at all, but eventually it's not that bad. She has torn ligaments and also damage to the bone, so she needs to wear a special "shoe" (such a big plastic thing) for 6 weeks and then slowly needs to rehab. I don't expect her to be back on court before January.
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Halkbank Ankara now after building a young, local team decided to add Wilma Salas
to that roster for next season.volleyball.it just announced that Wilma Salas signed with Cuneo where she'll replace Selime Ilyasoglu whose contract was dissolved due to medical problems.
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I told you so........
Rule no.1 in women's volleyball: it ain't over till the fat lady sings
So I`m sorry Mathias for calling you out....( but I bet u did not see this one coming as well
).I've been watching women's volleyball to see anything coming. That's why I said that in F6 almost all results are possible for me. I never said NED is going to beat USA for sure, but I always considered it a realistic option.
(...)Kiraly keeps wasting players and tournaments. He can't pick the best players. He can't read the match. He has no idea of what a coach has to do. He just talks about breathing and craps like that. Once more he proved me right. SHAME.
Here's your next favourite song:
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If NED and Italy win tomorrow we'll already know all semifinalists and the last matches will be totally pointless. It will be the same as in men's WCH where we had friendly matches with bench players in the last pool matches of F6. ITA-SRB play first, so it will be China to decide whether they'll want to finish first and play against whoever loses ITA-SRB in the semifinal or if they'll rather hand the match over to the Dutch and play against the pool winner, but then also the Dutch might not want to win their pool depending on the result of ITA-SRB. This competition formula just sucks, IMO we need to return to having normal quarterfinals after 2nd round with crossed pairs, i.e. 1E vs 4F etc. It would make the 2nd round more interesting because four teams would pass instead of three and the ranking would be more important in order to get an easier opponent in QF. Would be less matches overall (well, actually only one per team...) but IMO a better solution than this F6 thing.
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They're not on the photos posted on DSC Facebook page. It also looks like Piia Korhonen still isn't playing after her ankle injury from EL, or at least only very occasionally.
Mareen Apitz (I can't get used to her new name) was awarded MVP and best setter of the tournament, Maria Segura best OH.
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That error by Adams for 9-6 was 1) the dumbest thing I've seen on international level in quite a while and 2) the final nail to USA's coffin at least for today's match.
So it's gonna be do or die for them tomorrow vs NED already.
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i know nobody cares now that we are in the final 6 phase, but here's the exciting match between GER x PUR.
interesting that when receiving serve and the setter is in front row, vanyak (MB) moves over to 2 and attacks like an OPP. like rachel sanchez or other cubans...
That's because Vanjak actually is an outside hitter in her club and has also played as OPP at times. She just played MB in her NCAA team for a few months some years ago and Koslowski put her to MB position because our "real" MBs are too weak plus Schölzel got injured before WCH, and Vanjak is a too weak receiver to play as OH on international level and at OPP she'd be 3rd choice in NT right now. She'll be back to playing OH in her club because her club coach thinks that this is where she belongs and it's also what she likes the most, but I'm really not sure if this is the best career choice for her...
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I think the Dutch would have a better chance against Italy and Serbia....because of their terrible ball control and weak mentality they are a easy prey for China and USA...I`m pretty sure China/USA are already studying Italy/Serbia rather than wasting time studying the Dutch as they know they will win easily.
How do the Dutch have "terrible ball control and weak mentality"?
Sure, they're not Japan or Thailand in terms of ball handling, but they're not worse than most other non-Asian teams, Italy being the big exception there. Grothues and Knip have provided a fairly solid reception in the most matches, and Dijkema does not have a "beautiful" technique but that doesn't mean that her ball control is bad. I won't even go into the mentality thing because I have no idea what's supposed to be your evidence for this
I think in F6 almost all results are possible, so of course they can lose both matches, but my guess is that they'll beat USA and put China into trouble at least. Might be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if they indeed turned out to be "easy prey".
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Speaking of Germany, is Lippmann unique in her big roundabout court lap she does to get from position 5 over to where she can attack from 2 (or 1, I guess, from backcourt)? Other OPs must do this, albeit more discreetly, and maybe I'm only noticing Lippmann do it because I'm fond of her.
I guess you mean what she does in rot.1. I think the American OPPs were the first to do this, definitely not a German invention. And I don't like it very much...
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I would agree about the importance of being 1st, but we all know that the only country that will get a truly easy draw will be Japan, if they qualify.
There's not going to be any "truly easy draw" with SRB, NED, ITA, CHN, USA (my most likely guess for F6).
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What cynical times we live in!
Well, after JPN-SRB in 2012 Olympic qualifier that got them both qualified and Thailand out, and only one result would achieve that, I can understand such thoughts...
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Just ran across this accidentally on Facebook....apparently Faig Garayev yesterday simply walked away during the 2nd set of ITA-AZE and today also didn't show up to coach the team
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If Brazil will lose to the Netherlands will they be out of contention for the final 6?
Not if Serbia beats Japan with 3 points. Right now Japan is one victory and 2 pts ahead of Brazil, so if both teams lose their next match, JPN-BRA will be a final for 3rd place and BRA needs to win it with 3 pts (assuming both lose by 3 pts in the previous match).
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After today's results Germany is out of the race for F6. Not that we ever really were in that race, but some dreaming was allowed after the Brazil match
Anyway, up till now I think the team definitely deserves some praise. It's a pity they couldn't turn the good performances against NED and in large parts also against JPN into points/wins, but other than that there is not much to complain about. I've never seen Brinker and Geerties play this well for so many matches in a row, plus Lippmann has established herself as a constant high level player over the last two years. If only we had some better MBs...but there is hope called Camilla Weitzel (18 years).
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Oh well, a win is a win. Still not enough to comfortably cruise to the final 6, unfortunately. Netherlands-Brazil will be crucial.
I think Japan-Brazil will be crucial as well...
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For the tie-break Kwiek switched the positions of Brayelin and De La Cruz. No idea what he intended with it, but what actually happened was a lot of confusion in reception in the beginning.
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It was 18:13, then 4 pts in a row by Japan.