Posts by triglav_kran

Rouzier is such a strange player. He clearly has the technique and often reduces the power in favour of accuracy or better placement, but very often he looks as if he closes his eyes and just smacks the ball hoping he'll get away with it... and in most cases he does. Especially against triple blocks. He almost never has clear kills (even vs a single block) but he uses the block extremely effectively.

I agree 100% about Tillie. I didn't like him at first but he is a foundational piece for the team in the same way Ngapeth and Toniutti are. Always solid in defence/reception and reliable in attack.

I don't know why there's so much hate on Ngapeth. He is flashy yes, he sometimes makes some mistakes yes and his body language sometimes conveys as if he is arrogant a**hole who doesn't care about the team but that's deceiving. I'm sure he's a great teammate and from what I know he is in great relationship with almost all current and former teammates. And volleyball needs his flashy side. You can't promote the game with Mateusz Mika or Victor Yosifov. You need the Ngapeths, the Zaytsevs, the Simons, etc.

Thankfully volleyball logic prevailed. If Bulgaria had won 3-0, we could've had the weakest Euro champion ever (although great kudos to Slovenia for what they did so far). I haven't seen France playing that badly as they did in the first 2 sets and a half for more than a year. But as always, BG are kings in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Afterwards, France were calm and composed (even during 1-4 in the 5th set) and did what they should've done in 3 sets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=372&v=RvOnXh3NN9w

Quote from Canter

i have an opinion on agnostics (i think so at least)..but i cant help myself asking this : whats your practical approach in life towards religion etc ? are you practically an atheist/disbeliever or what ?

To answer your question:

Antitheists reject religions and reject the possibility of the existence of God (in philosophical sense).
Agnostics reject religions but do not reject the possibility of the existence of God (in philosophical sense).
In other words my common sense tells me the religions I have heard about are pure fiction and I don't want to fill the gaps in my knowledge with fantasy. But I'm aware that I have those gaps in knowledge and that any new knowledge has the capacity to debunk and overrule any (or even all) current knowledge (e.g. Galileo, Einstein, etc.) therefore I cannot reject or accept anything for certainty. So I leave the world as it is and don't bother worrying too much about God. My life will continue with or without him.

On the topic:

Of course there are rapists, criminals and generally bad people amongst the immigrants/refugees. They are no different than any other mob/social group. The problem here is not with them, but with the ineffectiveness of the public services (police, hospitals, etc.). Of course, they will show rapes from refugees as such fear mongering feeds the moral panic in the xenophobic societies, mostly in Eastern and South Eastern Europe. But the truth is that countries (especially the most developed ones) NEED those refugees and economic migrants. For example, 25% of all doctors in the UK are not born there, their financial sector (a backbone of their economy) is filled with immigrants, without immigrant builders, plumbers and carpenters most of the country's houses would have collapsed by now. The more open to the movement of labour this world becomes, the quicker its progress will be.

Quote from majka.antosik

I haven't been in Syria, I have friends from Syria and I know what I'm talking about. I agree that we should help refugees, it doesn't change the fact that at least half of these people are NOT from Syria, but from another (poor) countries and they are using the opportunity and Merkel's complete idiocy to get to "better world". I don't see how saying the truth makes me xenophobic and racist

It wasn't Eurostat that gave such a margin, I gave such a huge margin, because I didn't remember exact data, I cannot find this article right now, I found UNHCR one - 70% of men. I would appreciate if you gave me your source of "men are historically the bigger proportion of refugees", because I've been told and I've read the complete opposite (no irony here, I will be glad to see different appoach to this, because it's absolutely incomprehensible and immaginable to me that my dad leaves me, my mom and sister on the war and escapes himself, and from my grandparents' stories about the past I know that it was completely unthinkable during II WW too.

I don't have ready stats but the empirical evidence shows that men are by far the larger margin of economic migrants. They go to Europe and spend years working while they send a large proportion of their salaries home to their families. When they become well-off in their host countries they often come back with their savings and build better lives at home. Their family and children are often sheltered by the whole village which can have most of its young males hustling abroad. This is the story with most immigrants from 3rd world countries and even from the more deprived European countries.

But they are not refugees, of course. The problem with finding data from refugees is that the term is vague and ambiguous. Secondly, we can't have solid reliable data pre-1880s. Thirdly, most refugees come from and to Africa and some parts of Asia where the West is not interested in doing or researching much. But nevertheless I have read somewhere that especially during WWII the predominant profile of the refugees were males and/or families (arguably dragged in by the same males). There were hardly ever any single females (non-married). The explanations can be drawn mainly from sociology and the gender roles, especially in the past.

But it doesn't matter actually if 70-80% of all refugees are male. Or Syrians. Or what percentage of them is ISIS and what's not. It's not a question of whose fault this is. This is a simple question of humanity. You can't lower down and dehumanise a group that has travelled more than a continent (mostly on foot!) and risked their lives multiple times along the way to merely being a group of economic opportunists. Give them a helping hand, even if it costs you a bit of your welfare and you can be assured that you'll reap the rewards in the future!

Quote from Canter

a new genocide against who?

My point was that the only way to stop the Islamisation of Europe is through another Hitler-esque genocide, and a very very few things in this world can be worse than such a thing. And don't take my words out of context. As an atheist agnostic, I don't mind islam and muslim people which I put on the same level as christians and christianity so for me there's no difference if Europe is muslim or christian (or atheist).

Quote from majka.antosik

it's not only on the pictures. According to Eurostat 70-80% of these people are men under 40. Women and children are left behind on the war (just joking, everybody sane knows that huge majority of these people hasn't even seen a war)

Have you been to Syria to talk like that? Have you seen pictures of the place? These people are continuosly bombed by their government, ISIS and other rebels for years now.

Men are historically the bigger proportion of refugees due to social and (arguably) biological reasons. But I still don't believe your data. Eurostat will never report an estimate with suge a huge 10% margin.

Wow, a lot of xenophobia in here... Does it matter if one is muslim, catholic, protestant or atheist? These people are torn by war and risking their own lives and the lives of their families they came to Europe to seek safety and a better life.

ISIS have their own problems in the Middle East and I doubt sending agents all around Europe is high on their agenda now. Plus, those that come to Europe are still a minority - there are millions already in Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, etc.

These people are qualified, mostly young who will bring huge economical and cultural benefits to their new host countries. Why does it matter if they are muslim or not? As a matter of fact, whether you like it or not, Europe will be predominantly muslim in less than 50 years and you can do nothing about it. Besides a new genocide perhaps.

Quote from Bartek

Shockingly fresh informations from CAVB

> https://twitter.com/cavbpress

What the fck

Did Cameroon win eventually?

***Not sure this is the right place for this kind of thread. Feel free to move it to another place***

I already wrote a topic in the Men's International Competitions, so let me do it here as well.

London Legacy Volleyball Cup

The LLVC is a friendly two-day international club tournament for both men and women between four teams, two English and two non-English. It will take place during the weekend of 12/13th September at the Copper Box Arena in London. Since this is the women's volleyball section, I will only post info about the women's side of the tournament.

Teams in the Women's Competition:

1. RC Cannes (France)
2. Schweriner SC (Germany)
3. Team Northumbria (England)
4. Polonia SideOut London (England)

Each team is required to send at least half of its starting lineup to the competition, so we will see most of the best players from both Cannes and Schwerin.

All the info about the event including match schedule, results and news can be found on its website - LondonLegacyVolleyballCup.com. There is also info about tickets on the website if anyone is around London at the time and wants to visit the LLVC. We will have an HD live feed for each game, I will send a link closer to the date. If the event becomes a success, it will develop as an annual competition with more and more elite clubs participating in it.

The match between Schwerin and Cannes will take place on Sunday 13th September, 16:00 UK time.

***Not sure this is the right place for this kind of thread. Feel free to move it to another place***

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet, so let me be the one:

London Legacy Volleyball Cup

The LLVC is a friendly two-day international club tournament for both men and women between four teams, two English and two non-English. It will take place during the weekend of 12/13th September at the Copper Box Arena in London. Since this is the men's volleyball section, I will only post info about the men's side of the tournament.

Teams in the Men's Competition:

1. SKRA Belchatow (Poland)
2. Friedrichshafen (Germany)
3. Team Northumbria (England)
4. CBL Polonia London (England)

Each team is required to send at least half of its starting lineup to the competition, so we will see most of the best players from both Friedrichshafen and SKRA (at least, those that aren't playing in the World Cup).

All the info about the event including match schedule, results and news can be found on its website - LondonLegacyVolleyballCup.com . There is also info about tickets on the website if anyone is around London at the time and wants to visit the LLVC. We will have an HD live feed for each game, I will send a link closer to the date.

SKRA are very keen about this event because of the Polish community in the UK which is the fastest-growing one atm. The event is promoted through their channels, and through the Polish volleyball federation as well. If the event becomes a success, it will develop as an annual competition with more and more elite clubs participating in it.

The match between SKRA and Friedrichshafen will take place on Sunday 13th September, 18:30 UK time.

Quote from laikon

Is impression a really valid criterion? If in your opinion it is I have no arguments to discuss it. As for cotribution to the team's final result - even if a libero make a great dig and saves the ball, he needs someone to set the ball and spike it. So in your opinion Zatorski should be punished for a poor performance of his teammates? How fair is it?

The stats which you and people like raylight so often present are essential and indispensive element of volleyball nowadays, no doubt. However, their greatest flaw is that they can present only quantitative data. The qualitative data can be extracted only from experts or fans watching the games and making their own judgements. And that is why there is a jury who votes for the best players and that's not made automatic by a computer.

To illuminate more on that, Zatorski can have better percentages over Grebennikov but that also depends on the opponents' serves and spikes. The stats don't show how difficult their digs are. The easiest example would be that if Nikola Rosic defends against a less potent attack like the one of Spain, let's say, he might have a better percentage than Grebennikov against the USA. But that doesn't mean anything.

Of course, you might say that in World League F6 the teams are pretty much equal in strength and my example is irrelevant and you might be quite right. And also, that the amount of digs they have to do eliminates the statistical error element, but I don't quite agree here.

For me Grebennikov was the better libero both in terms of plays and in terms of his presence and leadership on court (which is also not caught by the statistics). And if the majority of the people here say that Jenia was undeniably the better libero, then it's either that this forum is full of biased laymen, or that the stats as a measure of performance is somewhat flawed.

Stats for me are a lot more important for prediction. Therefore, they are mostly valuable for coaches and assistants in the preparation before matches.

Grebennikov overlooked as the best libero?! WTF!!!

Quote from Matthias

Deserved win for France. But I hope Ngapeth won't be MVP, except for the serves in 3rd set he didn't play well today and it would make his ego explode even more, already now he's probably the biggest narcisst in volleyball.

I don't quite agree. First, if not him, there's no one else who can win it. Possibly Grebennikov but they rarely give it to liberos.

He was not exceptional today but he did his share. He was huge yesterday when he had to cover for Tillie's absense. He has been clutch all tournament and again he delivered at the end of the third set. If Serbia won it, who knows what would've happened. And I don't agree about his personality. Yes, he is often a show-off, but he is respectful to his opponents and is very popular among the elite volleyball community. By that I not only mean fans but also among players and coaches from other countries and clubs.

About the match and tournament - totally deserved win by France. What a team

Serbia has awful setters and that will make the difference. Their other players are not at the same level as yesterday as well.

Earvin is a great player!!! So much skill. Still, France should thank Kurek.

And I know I'm moaning all day but the challenge system is a load of crap! Three wrong challenges per match and then you won't see every match point being challenged. Takes all the emotion from winning away. Imagine if Poland had won the challenge, then the emotionally exhausted French had to start playing a game they thought they already won...

Oh for f.ck sake with these challenges!!!

Again, two useless challenges by the French.

Edit: There you go! Calling two hopeless challenges and not being able to challenge a wrong call on a match point

Edit 2: Still won it. Deservedly.

The net touch was not clear at all. There could've been one, but it was a very very close call even after it being reviewed.

And by the way, I don't like the challenge system. Coaches are challenging every second point, it takes 1 minute to review it and the game flow is being interrupted massively. I think it's best if teams have the right of 3 wrong challenges per match or 1 per set.

WHAT A MATCH!!!

Yanks started the match rather neglectful and I considered them buried after the middle of the third set. Then the Serbs lost focus, made more errors from serve and set and let the US back into the match.

The net touch challenge at the tiebreak was controversial.

Sander was poor both yesterday and today. Anderson, although dominant all tournament made some few but key errors. Serbs have world-class players on all positions besides setter and libero. They were exposed again today but managed to scrape through.

And lastly, you gotta love Uros Kovacevic