Posts by LDvolley

andrea wrote:

Szalpuk played well, but Leon can still strengthen the squad much further as Kubiak's opposite.

I know he will be important eventually but I wouldn't touch this great chemistry right from the start just to add stars, they could end up like Italy...

To be honest, with Kurek and the OHs in this level, León should start from the bench...

As an Argentina fan, the sooner we are out the better. The coach is awful and should have been fired like 2 years ago but somehow is still in the job because the federation doesn't really care about women's volleyball, so any donkey could coach them for all they care. The team has only 2 semi-decent players but the moron in charge dropped Nizetich cuz he didn't like genuine criticism from her.

I hope Cameroon can beat our team, no will to watch all those 3-0s in the 2nd round.

lol the level of current women's volleyball is terrible, everything outside the top 6/7 teams is a 3-0 with +10 point difference per set.

pope wrote:

I`m not sure where the idea that Serbia would let Poland win tomorrow is coming from... This is what Brazil and Italy does.... Remember Italy let Canada win the final game in Rio of pool play and tomorrow they will do the same against NED if they can eliminate Russia that way....and Brazil is known for fixing results..... Serbia has never done that and will never do.... They can careless if either Poland or France moves on.. They will play to win.

Italy is probably already crapping on their pants hopping they don`t have Brazil in the semis.

Again, one thing is losing on purpose, another is playing the substitutes and losing as a consecuence. I do think Serbia will play 100% tomorrow, but it won't be the same if they reserve Atanasijevic, Podrascanin, Kovacevic, etc which they have all the right to do.

Leonardo.D wrote:

Yes sure, but they still dont know if they qualify as one of the best two 2nd ranked teams. So, indeed, it is stil quite risky.

Serbia will officially qualify if Brazil beats Slovenia and USA beats Bulgaria though, because that way the 2nd placed from those two pools will not be able to surpass them in any way.

Poland is just throwing the match thinking that since Serbia is qualified they won't care about the match tomorrow.

Heynen used to do this "play the subs if it's not worth it" strategy a lot when he coached Germany and Belgium.

ryleybarnes wrote:

Bruno Lima is just pathetic.

He's been easily Argentina's worst player in this WCh. Second worst is Conte (yeah, despite the 33 points v Japan). Poor Lima is having such low confidence that he's making float serves since a few matches ago despite he normally serves strong jump serve.

However, to be fair, Lima is another OH being used as Opp. We have tried so many Opp. in the last 10 years and still can't find anyone half as reliable as Marcos Milinkovic!

I have no idea how German Johansen (Opp, MVP of U23 Wch last year) didn't make this squad.

About the match, not much to say, just another show of the "consistent inconsistency" of Argentina. Many people say the main problem of this NT is physicality but I actually think the biggest problem is mental. They just don't have the correct mentality for volleyball which is taking every point as the same... they are very emotional and have some streaks where they can defend and score anything, and then other streaks in which they can't receive a float serve correctly for like 6 consecutive points. Velasco has pointed out this weakness of the team many times but in 4 years of work he still can't improve this aspect.

Good god, how much I love every time that loon Heynen receives his comeuppance for acting like a teenager inside the court.

#Askforachallenge

Kk15 wrote:

I know he said that, but what I was wondering is why

I mean, it seemed like a correction, but it wasn't actually correcting something, just adding an info...

Unless he didn't agree with the teams in the brackets?

Japan won, I didn't expected that. Not that one/two points made a great difference for Argentina's hope to get to Turin, but still...

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I know that but those points matter, like, to finish above Australia or Finland in the final ranking. Now, we will finish even below those teams and our world ranking will fall apart.

No words, absolutely embarassing defeat.

They shouldn't even bother showing up in Varna for the second round.

Japan already eliminated and still takes it to 5th.

This Argentina team

Kakeru wrote:

Is there any livestream for Japan-Argentina game?

Here (argentinian channel that broadcasts the games): http://www.tvpublica.com.ar/vivo/

Kk15 wrote:

brahmin, I didn't understand. Is it just a specific, or a correction?

If France will beat Canada 3-0 or 3-1, they'll be ahed of them.

Ps anyway I didn't do the math, just copied it from volleyball.it with a bit of correction on Serbia/Russia (I actually forgot the correction in pool H) and Belgio/Slovenia: I considered these two couple of teams like 'having even chance of being 2nd/3rd', while them said Slovenia and Russia are more chance to be 2nd than respectively Belgio and Serbia.

He said "tied in points and wins", if France wins 3-0 or 3-1 they will be tied in wins but not in points: Canada will have 9 and France 11. He's talking about the case in which France wins 3-2, they will be tied in both but Canada will still have better set ratio.

Rains wrote:

Maybe De Cecco is changing citizenship like Orduña?

Orduna did that because he hasn't been good enough to play for Argentina, so he uses his italian citizenship to get signed easier by italian clubs.

If De Cecco changes something, then it means he's planning to not play international volleyball anymore (also, he's already 30). I see him retiring soon, but I would like to think he wants to try one more olympics.

Useless win for Argentina as they needed 3-0 or 3-1 to avoid 4th place and a "death group" with POL, RUS and maybe FRA in next round.

MVP was Poglajen, maybe he was motivated to play the country of his ancestors? who knows.

Conte and De Cecco are now bench warmers somehow, that sad part is that it's deserved...

Rains wrote:

Agree on the 4th set of Gonzales but he's still been pretty much average so far. It could have been much better to have Lima as a sole opp. Palacios can still ensure a high ball solution(he's also younger) and Bruno is a leader to me in his club. I think there's still more use to them than Gonzales in the long term.

Thing is Lima has his up and downs too, he's not that stable. Today he had fantastic 1st set but then couldn't kill almost anything in the next two sets.

Also, it doesn't help us that Facu Conte wasted two years of his career in China and he is in bad shape now. If he was at his best I would simply play him as Opp and Poglajen + Lopez or Zanotti as OH.

Unfortunately, WCh is essentially over for our team now. They had the objective (or the hope) to reach final six and finally do something significant, but it's already imposible after 3 games. They will probably now play unmotivated and lose to Slovenia as well.

Preparation wasn't great so this isn't exactly unexpected to me (Conte and Solé with injury problems, De Cecco out of shape and with personal problems, coach already announcing departure before the competition), but it's depressing that the eternal circle of disappointment continues for our NT.

Rains wrote:

Why did Velasco left Palacios and Bruno though? Seems like those player could be more helpful than the opposite Gonzales.

Palacios had poor WL and Bruno is old and too short to be useful anymore, I fear. Anyway, both are OH, Gonzalez is Opp (and funny you say that, he had extraordinaty 4th set just now lol).

Well, too bad, we really deserved at least a point from this match.

Again, the 2nd set was won for Italy because of an insane serve turn from Mazzone, now the 4th is being won by a single turn from Zaytsev.

Italy is completely dependant on their serve, any team that receives better than what Argentina did today can easily beat them I'm afraid.

Italy is monster serves + referee and little else if i'm honest.