Does anyone know if Bulgaria plays the last round with the best players? I might go to Metz on Saturday and I'd like to see at least an interesting BUL-FRA game...
Posts by Matthias
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Final Round - Ningbo (CHN)
27th June
73 Brazil - USA 2:3
74 Thailand - Turkey 0:3
75 China - Cuba 3:228th June
76 USA - Thailand 3:0
77 Cuba - Turkey 1:3
78 China - Brazil 0:329th June
79 Brazil - Cuba 3:1
80 Turkey - USA 2:3
81 China - Thailand 3:130th June
82 Brazil - Thailand 3:0
83 Cuba - USA 0:3
84 China - Turkey 1:31st July
85 Turkey - Brazil 2:3
86 Thailand - Cuba 3:2
87 China - USA 1:3 -
Spanish-Argentinian setter Romina Lamas returns after a year off and will play in France for Hainaut.
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She has played there before (in 2005-06 I think) together with Ruiz and Ortiz, so it's not that surprising. I hope she can play like some years ago
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But what do you think about the decrease of Akinradewo's performance this year? I mean still she is great but not as outstanding as she was last year. Would weak season with Krasnodar be reason?
I think her connection with Berg was not so good in this tournament, in block she still was really good. 2 years ago when Akinradewo was MVP of GP, Glass was the setter, so maybe she can play better with her than with Berg, but I'm sure they'll work hard on it until OG.
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Thomsen, Hanke and Brandt already renewed for next season, right? So they are sure as well.
Did they?
I'm not sure...I just know Hanke's contract expired after the season, but I don't remember any news about renewing...About Renkema, seems like Potsdam is building a stronger team than in the previous seasons. They already have Kathy Radzuweit and Nikol Sajdova as MBs, now Renkema and the other OHs Dörfler and Zülow also are not that bad, and I heard they are interested in another OH from abroad (but that is still not official, but would be a good transfer if she comes), so now they just need a good setter and Opp, seems like Fresco will indeed leave, she is no longer in the roster on Potsdam website.
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I think if Sloetjes can manage to play like in some preliminary matches, missing Flier would not be a big problem. Of course if Flier was there, Sloetjes could play as OH...but I agree that players like Flier and K Staelens deserve a rest during EL.
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Barbara Garcia Duarte will stay another year in Köpenick. I think Alicja Leszczynska will stay there as well, she was on photos of the presentation of Köpenick's new main sponsor together with Garcia.
Management of Schwerin said their team is almost complete, they're only looking for another attacker. They will have 12 or 13 players and the main goal will be to defend the champion title and do well in ECL. I hope they'll present their team soon...so far, the only sure players are Anne Buijs, Lousiane Souza Ziegler and Quinta Steenbergen.
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A bit off topic, but anyway...
After OG, Thomas Krohne will take over DVV presidency from Werner von Moltke. Von Moltke was president for the last 15 years and some time ago he said he would retire because of his age (he is 75) as soon as a successor is found, and now this has happened.
Thomas Krohne works for the media company that owns Laola1.tv and was active as player and referee too, so I think he can do good work for our federation
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Laola will broadcast all matches of final round
Just to clarify, I have nothing at all against Thailand team, I even like their style of play. I think they could have been in final round also with stronger opponents, but please, if you think objectively, you can't deny that they had the easiest preliminaries of all teams!
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Did you forget that you didn't play with main players in order to discard Turkey in Olimpic Qualification at Baku
I don't think Germany is that much innocent at all in history 
You definitely mix up something there. Germany played all matches in Baku with best team, because all matches except the first (vs AZE) and the final vs Turkey went over 5 sets. It was Poland who played with 2nd team against AZE to avoid Italy in semifinal and get Turkey instead, but they lost anyway.
And in case you mean the one WGP qualifier where Turkey was out because Germany lost 1:3 against some team (I don't remember which), some German players including Angelina Grün could not play this match due to food poisoning and that was definitely not any cover story!
So please, if you want to make accusations, you should research better at least
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Display MoreDo u guys think USA is going with first team to Final Phase or keep this B team?
I honestly dont know. The games already start wednesday, I think they will keep this B team from this last round, and will let their main players resting.
The Round-Robin system is tiring, and I dont think McCutcheon is willing to injury any of his main players. I think main team of USA would definetly win this tournament! And maybe for their moral would be quite good, but I dont know If they really care about that, they are pretty much confident already...they know they are playing in good level...so I dont see why to take that risk over a tourament that counts nothing like Grand Prix...
but maybe Im wrong, we will see.
As far as I know, McCutcheon said that the B team would also play in final round and the main players stay training at home. But I think even USA's B team can beat all other teams in the tournament.
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Display MoreFor those german fans
Please stop disrepecting china team like that.
I know only china win today germany can go to the final
But the point is wang yi mei is injured
Hui ruo qi played not good today
Zhang lei also
Wei qiu yue is injurdFan linlin just sucks we all know that
Mi yang is not that good as weiHow can you expect china to play well against brazil especially china always has mental pressure against brazil.
China treat this tournament seriouslyIf you think that china lose to brazil intentionally
You really dont know china volleyball
Brazil is the one china want to win the most especially play in home courtI feel sorry for german team not playing the final round coz they played so hard
But just be fair to chinese team ok?
I don't think anyone accused China of losing on purpose and everybody acknoledges their problems with injuries, but still it is annoying to see them play THAT bad in a match that is important for other teams, especially because in the previous matches their performance was better. The problem is not that they lost, but the way they did it, also because Brazil today also played quite weak except in 3rd set.
what do you mean? Thailand missed the opportunity for London at last moment.They've improved...
Yes they have improved, but their opponents so far in WGP have really been ridiculous. 2x ARG, 2x PUR, 1x DOM, 1x SRB B, 1x JPN B. The only stronger opponents they had were China and USA, and they lost both those matches, and even very clearly against USA's B team. It will be hard for them to win any match in final round, no matter what the formula is. -
Finally, there is a press release by FIVB, but it doesn't give any info about final round system
http://www.fivb.org/viewPressR….asp?No=35592&Language=en -
Maybe there will be a new rule, similar to WOQT:
In Final are 5 best teams plus China. If China is among best 5, the last ticket goes to the team outside of best 5 which FIVB likes most -
In match report about CHN-BRA is written:
Till now, the legs of the World Grand Prix 2012 that lasted for three weeks ended up completely. Six teams, including China, USA, Turkey, Thailand, Brazil and Cuba would compete in the finals of WGP in China.
So I guess Skorupa is really the source of confusion
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Poland captain Katarzyna Skorupa: "Congratulations to Italy. Although we knew we could go to the World Grand Prix finals before playing this match, we still wanted to win."
Maybe she wanted to say they knew they could NOT go to finals...and Bracci and Ortolani just congratulated her because they didn't notice her mistake...
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FIVB rules are so all over the palce, not even teh teams know how it goes....
with Italian comments...what makes us think 8 quali to final round?
Really everything just a mess at this point.
So maybe Germany is in final round and doesn't even know?
But right now I guess final 6 with 2 pools is the most likely, that's what's written on WGP formula section. -
It's always a problem with Grand Prix, the pools are extremely imbalanced and even more so when some teams decide to tank or play with weaker squads.
The whole system needs to be thoroughly revised, but knowing FIVB, it's not going to happen.
One idea would be to make drawing of lots for pools according to world ranking. There would be 4 groups according to world ranking:Best 4: USA, BRA, JPN, ITA,
Next 4: CHN, SRB, GER, DOM
Next 4: CUB, TUR, THA, KOR,
Worst 4: POL, ARG, PUR, TPEThen, in every pool of WGP would be one team from each of these groups, and there should be a rule that teams can meet each other max. twice during preliminaries. Even though this system wouldn't be perfect either, there would at least be some limitations. For example a pool like we had this year with BRA, USA, ITA, GER would not be possible, and it would be guaranteed that there is some balance and a team like THA could not play 4 times against teams from the worst group. Of course, some countries sending their B teams would cause problems for this system as well, because for example POL would be in the worst group from world ranking but they are definitely better than DOM's current team. But then, there is no perfect system for everything...
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Just because the Germany are not going to play the finals.
You think like a child.
In this case, many people here think like children. The only matches Germany lost were against USA's best team, number 1 in world ranking, and against Brazil (number 2 in world ranking) in Brazil. Look at Thailand's opponents and then tell me they would have reached final round if they had had the same opponents as Germany! Just look at their result against USA's 2nd team today