Display MoreA couple of ideas I'd like to share about Brazil's victory and the upcoming matches:
1)I think most people said that already, and I kept enphasizing that while watching the match: the very key for Russia losing, or just overall underperforming, was Russia's very poor service. While watching the match, I realized how these days none of the russian girls uses jump serves. Quite a difference situation when you campare to the great russian team that got silver medal in 2000, for instance. Brazilian reception has tons of vulnerabilities, pretty much among all three receivers. Russia never took advantage of that. Dani Lins played all 5 sets with the ball on her hands and, kudos to her, she played an excellent match. Russian block struggled A LOT. (It worked better in the end of the 3rd set, thanks to a good - maybe the only good - sequence of serves by Gamova.) Thaísa had 19 points in attack. I'm sure Brazil wouldn't have been able to take the match the fifth set if not for those very precious points, cause our OH's would struggle to score anyway. That made the whole difference. It's like Russia didn't strategize very well for the match, like didn't really believe Brazil could beat them. Brazil, on the other hand, though not being always consistent with their serve, seemed to be very tactically prepared to handle Russia's strong attacks - specially Gamova's. She suffered a lot with the good brazilian defense. And Brazil improved their defense so much, compared to the game versus US! Great match by Sokolova, as well. If this is really her last match with the russian jersey, I think she can leave proud. Gamova, though people saying she'll probably retire, I think she'll come back. Probably she's just disappointed in the result. But she's still has a lot more to give to this NT. And she might wanna take a revenge against brazilians in Brazil in 4 years. That'd be quite interesting.
For semifinals, I think:
2)Brazil vs Japan will probably be the more balanced of the semis. I see it's a mental battle for Brazil, rather than a tactical one. We've all been following Japan this tournament and we've all seen what's their approach in the match against China. They work pretty much based on position 4.That's how they score, wether if it's with Kimura or Ebata. Brazil obviously has a more sophisticated way of playing and plenty of resources to stop Japan's attacks. What's tricky is Brazil's gonna have to have a lot of patience and mental strenght - which they showed this OG in the match against Russia, but, I'm afraid, pretty much only in the match against Russia - to defeat Japan, cause they're restless defensewise, so Brazil's gonna have to attack a lot and use a lot of diversity against Japan's defense. I think Brazil can do it, specially since it seems now Dani Lins developped an unseen sense of confidence. And, sad enough, Brazil won't be able to rely on Sassá this time around.
Also important to note that sometimes Brazil focus too much on a particular opponent. I think in 2010, Brazil's target was Italy, because they have been losing to them quite frequently, and they saw them as their biggest competition. Brazil studied Italy, destroyed Italy in the WCH, (25x7!), but then, in the final match, was not able to stop Gamova. Last year, in the GP, I think Brazil totally focused Russia, having losing to them the year before, and in the final match, didn't expect USA to be so strong as they were, specially since Brazil had been usually beating USA up til that point. And then USA crushed Brazil and it did again several times after. So, now, brazilians have to be very focused, cause these last couple of years, Japan showed they can totally beat them, and just this amazing victory against Russia won't do, to make it to the final.
3)Koreans are doing amazing, aren't they? People ruled them out of qualifying to the quarters, then of beating Brazil, then of moving through Italy. So... Yeah, I'm pretty sure they won't beat USA, but they're doing spectacular so far, it's the best korean team in quite a while, and, I don't know. All I know is for sure they're putting up a fight. And USA might miss Berg... I have no idea if she'll be ready for the semis (though actually Thompson showed quite good connection with the middles in the match vs the dominicans). I actually think both the american and korean systems are quite similar, despite USA being obviously a superior overall team. But they both rely very much on one attacker, and yet, they can get the others involved - and actually need them very much to put in practice their best performance possible, which, for instance, is different than Japan, that, pretty much, scores only with 2 attackers. USA is a great team, but if you put them in danger, it becomes very much about Hooker. That's what happened to them against Brazil starting from the 3rd set on, when Larson stopped being effective. Berg would just set Hooker and that was it, which is pretty much the idea most people have about Korea with Kim. But it's interesting to notice that in this match against Italy - and the match versus Brazil, likewise - Korea used their other attackers a lot. They still can't use all of them, cause it's such a struggle to make either Kim Hee Jin or Hwang Youn Joo make points. But I think the middles are becoming increasingly more confident - which is also improving their performance in block - and also Hang Song Yi is showing she can help Kim score, though, obviously, not as regularly. I think it's gonna be a good match to watch, but I don't expect it to be as balanced as the other semi. I mean, in order to beat USA, Korea would have to find a way to stop Hooker, which is something no one was able to achieve yet - I thought Russia was the only one left that could. So, even if they can prevent attacks from the middle and even neutralize Tom and Larson's attacks in some way, if they're not able to stop Hooker, it won't do.
It depends on whether Hooker will have spikes full of strength.
even though Hooker spikes very high,if it was not powerful, team with good defense can save the ball
that's how Japan beat USA in World cup 3:0, they just saved many spikes from Hooker.
Of course, Korea's defense is not as good as Japan.
But i think Korea will a find to deal with it even USA is still have higher chance to win.
