By the way, I have studied statistics from Béziers vs. Maritza PLOVDIV (BUL) and discovered, that still (no more very long, I'm sure, French title will go to Mulhouse, Cannes or Volero Le Cannet) French champions played with a setup forbidden in French league, just using one French player. So their home league weakness may have as root, that they have to use some too weak French players there, which they don't need in CEV CL. But anyway, even considering this unusual aspect (I thought this kind of over hiring foreigners only for CL is only done in a few top leagues like Italy and Turkey) Stuttgart is favourite tomorrow for me.
Posts by StefanS
-
-
Finally Liberec won 3-0. The opp of Hapoel finished the match with 4/27 at. Calcit won 3-1.
Tommorow Aydin and Monza are the favorites. The other two matches are Polkky - AO Thiras and Vasas- Nova Gorica.
Vasas BUDAPEST vs. GEN-I Nova Gorica is a very interesting comparison: both are leading their respective leagues now, both leads came as a surprise. Slovenian league features as well three decent teams on top as Hungarian league - I can't predict, what will happen in this match, but this might be an interesting one anyway.
-
Some more considerations: indeed German VBL teams play all the time the Mikasa, regardless if it is own league or CEV competitions, while Italy sticks to Molten in the women's league (funnily Italian men's superleague also uses Mikasa). Especially in the first matches of the season this can be a disadvantage for Italian teams meeting German teams of course, but generally speaking Italian teams competing in European Cups are technical very good and can adapt mostly quickly to the different ball, so it should not be overrated IMHO.
On the other hand German clubs know about the importance of strong, aggressive serves against strong contenders, and so Schwerin did an important thing naturally right: they served strongly and met a reception of Conegliano not stable enough. This may be an important issue, especially the Mikasa is indeed more difficult to receive well as the Molten ball, and if you exploit the spin behaviour of Mikasa, as most German league players do, the job becomes even more difficult.
But look on the roster of Imoco CONEGLIANO: they have much more quality than Schwerin in it, even considering their injury issues. So there is no good excuse for Conegliano, especially they knew before, that an opponent like Schwerin is not from the easy ones.
-
Galatasaray again not with an easy match it seems, anyone knows about Yenisey Krasnoyarsk's real strength? They have beaten Kazan 3-1 in Russian Cup is what I notice. GS is still not perfected their game and struggle vs Turkish bottom 4 teams sometimes, who knows what might happen.
It's really hard to guess, what will happen, when Galatasaray from warm Istanbul meets Krasnoyarsk from very cold Eastern Siberia - both teams are not very constant in their level, so let's see, what will happen.
-
Veliky 8/13 attacks in the first set against Liberec
Anna Veliky is the only really good attacker in Israel.
-
Liberec won the first set 32-30...on the other match Ladies cant fight so far against Calcit Kamnik.
After watching Aachens performance in their last matches I had already serious doubts regarding their quality, they were underperfoming - and Calcit Kamnik is an experienced European Cups team, not playing bad.
-
Honestly, because I know well what Schwerin can do as team and what not: this was a rather poor performance by the defending Italian champions and should not happen this way. When last time VBL teams annoyed Italian teams, the latter could avert that attack as expected (this season Busto Arsizio vs. Dresden, last season Casalmaggiore against Stuttgart).
-
Wonder how Schwerin lost to Lodz
Bad match by Schwerin and LKS Commercecon Lodz is a pretty good team.
-
It seems, that Conegliano has currently some serious issues.
-
what amazed me most is the underdogs fearlesness. It was Conegliano there who got many sp's and it was Schwerin saving them each time, Bravo!
German league is a fighting zone very similar to Italian league, just on a lower level. So if an Italian team offers vulnerabilities, our best German teams can hurt them.
-
Keniia Parubets (born Ilchenko) had 26 points alone as top scorer, best scorer for Kazan was young girl Tatiana Kadochkina with 17.
-
Ekaterinburg won tie-break, the match and two points against Kazan by 15:5. This is definitely not that Kazan team from the last years, we also played in CL a few years ago in Stuttgart, having no chance at all despite playing well...
-
13:4 for Ekaterinburg - Kazan is totally lost now.
-
-
No idea... but Ekaterinburg leads now 7:1, only a wonder will save Kazan now...
-
Tie-break in Ekaterinburg, the hosts made the first two points...
-
Now close race in fourth set in Ekaterinburg... maybe we go into tie-break?
-
Btw, Kazan won the first two sets in Ekaterinburg, but lost the third clearly - will they collapse again today?
-
CSM Bucarest lost clearly in three sets at home in Romanian A1 against Alba Blaj last weekend, I don't think, that they are as strong as last year, when they won the title against Alba Blaj.
-
IMHO Stuttgart is much stronger than Béziers this season, I expect our team to win the home match in three, at most four sets. Béziers is playing a terrible season in France, being just 8. in the table of NLA and lost more matches (5) than won (4). Stuttgart is in Germany still unbeaten and German league is generally stronger than French league.