Posts by runnerupster
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One thing I like about Sylla is that she always keeps going, almost automated. She can make many mistakes, play mediocre all match but she's gonna keep digging and keep trying to kill the ball with the same motivation until the end of that match.
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Ferath's team isn't even close to Bregoli's last year...
Everyone considered it the worst Ecza of recent years, and everyone thought it'd be out of the European competition and fifth in the league: they finished third in the Sultanlar League and runner up in the Champions League...
They were the tallest team in the entire world last year and I don't recall people saying that they were the worst team. The reason people were disappointed early on is...well Eczacıbaşı played terrible and was like 8th for a while and finished at the lowest spot it did in 20-30 years and they had way weaker squads before. I'm not a hater of Bregoli and didn't dislike how the team played, I'm just saying bringing Ecz stats in for this comparison isn't super logical (yet)
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Eczacıbasi improved a lot in the 25/26 season compared to the 24/25 season, and Elif Sahin is playing better now. Bregoli is a much better coach than Ferhat Akbas.
Japan didn't really improve since Akbas became the coach. It's better to say that he got lucky to have some good players who carried the whole team.
There are good coaches, but Ferhat Akbas is NOT one of them.
I mean they're different teams, but Bregoli finished the regular season 4th which is like what? The worst result for Eczacıbaşı in 20 years? They only did well to come to the finals of CL, but Italian teams looked weaker last season.
Ferhat was tied for second in 24/25 and has a season where Eczacıbaşı was by far number 1 of the league: 22/23 with an 8 point lead. In any other sport that would be a clear champion. That Eczacıbaşı team was bad with Championship matches regardless of coach tbh, it's ok to say the team just wasn't working looking back.
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Calling Turkey “irrelevant before Vargas” is absurd. They won 5 medals in Euros (2 silver, 3 bronze) and 2 medals in VNL (1 silver, 1 bronze) before Vargas joined the team.
I guess only winning gold counts to some people or reaching semi-finals of the most major events, Turkey was certainly a fairly succesful team in the volleyball world for a while. Tbh I never liked this mentality and always thought that this mentality comes from non-volleyball fans that don't actually care about the sport so to them only OGs volleyball counts, as all sports essentially count in the name of representing your country on the OG medal board during the event. I love the Olympics, don't get me wrong but as a volleyball fan it's not all I care about just because sports fans, that don't even care about the sport are watching too.
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I only brought it up because it’s funny to be so condescending for a team that’s been way less successful over the last 10 years and hasn’t seen success until the multiple naturalizations. I won’t bring it up again it’s just a bit funny
I mean Serbia also had plenty naturalizations, I know Serbs don't consider it naturalization bcs of ethnic roots but that's not how the bureaucracy works. If it was a political subject, I would say yes you are right, those are your people and you should not have been divided to begin with so they should represent Serbia, but that's off-topic.
This is a global thing and Serbs call out Turkey for naturalizing Bosnians but same thing a bit over 100 years those people were not considered to be a different ethnicity. If we go by ethnic-blood shenenigans like that people in the black sea of Turkey should represent Georgia, Kurds and Alevis should represent Iran and/or Iraq. People of Roma heritage in all of the Balkans and Turkey should represent India. Germans in Czechia should represent Germany etc. But usually when we say this it only applies to bringing people in, I'm sure Serbia doesn't consider Kurtagic moving out. This is EVERYWHERE. These are the rules we deal with until there is a system that's more fair, and the least we can do is apply them to everyone. Hyper-nationalism just blinds you to this reality.
Mind you, I'm not saying that those people should not represent Serbia, I'm saying it's officially naturalization in pretty much the same way. So this push against Turkey is just hypocritical and lacking a bit of self-awareness.
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I think with Aleksic and Dangubic we absolutely could have had a really nice chance at gold in just one match vs Italy or turkey but without those 2 it’s going to be very difficult and require a huge effort from boskovic and uzelac both being on point. Then again turkey barely beat us in the 2023 when all their players played their absolute peak game of their careers and Serbia was missing multiple starters for most of the match and played badly besides boskovic Lol. But I have to say you are really confident for a team that’s only been relevant since they started raiding norceca for talent because what they had domestically wasn’t good enough….
Raiding Norceca? I mean, I thought the moderators asked to not bring this subject up anymore but I guess only Vargas has been, arguably, but we all know Serbia also offered her to represent Serbia too, but didn't have enough money vs TVF. That doesn't mean Serbian Vb can go on a holier than thou spree though now cause they failed. If you mean Jack-Kisal, she would have been a Turkish citizen regardless, naturally, as she married a Turkish citizen and resides with her husband and took his last name Kisal.
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It was Serbia's older generation that won more than Türkiye, not this current one. Players like Uzelac, Kurtagic, Cajic, Mirkovic, Gocanin, Osmajic, and Ivanovic have won nothing. Have they ever even played in a semi-final? Meanwhile, Türkiye has been a top-three team over the last 3 year and has consistently competed in the medal zone for the past 8 years.
3/6 starters for Serbia (with Aleksic and Dangubic missing or could be 5/6) are double Wch gold medalists and OG silver medalists though. Turkey does have the edge the last couple years form-wise but this is not a new rookie team.
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I used to love Eda-Zehra duo but honestly they are pretty bad at blocking the last few years, Jack is my favorite Turkish middle but Serbia also has Kurtagic, Osmajic etc. The Turkish trio only looks superior when all 3 are mentioned together imo but there are only 2 middles on court at the same time...
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Türkiye has better rotation depth at almost every position compared to Serbia. The only close matchups are at setter and OPP—and even then, I'd argue Türkiye holds a slight edge, though it's debatable.
Vargas = Boskovic
Cansu, Elif >= Maja, Mirkovic
Zehra, Eda, Jack > Kurtagic, Popovic, Osmajic
Hande, İlkin, Yaprak, Derya > Uzelac, Tica, Cajic, Ivanovic
Gizem, Eylül = Gocanin, Jegdic
If Ebrar was on the roster, the gap would be even wider. Hande and İlkin are far superior to the Serbians in defensive side of the game. Offensively it's close, but we have good attacking depth off the bench with Derya and Yaprak.
Beyond that, Türkiye and Italy both have well-defined roles and an established system. Serbia lacks this completely. It’s still entirely unclear who plays where, what their exact roles are, and how they will actually fit into the rotation.
Well that's an opinion, let's just say that
I would personally say MBs, but especially OHs are debatable and liberos are more clearly superior on the Serbian side. I'm the biggest fan of Hande, but let's be real, there are two versions of her since the beginning of her career and it's a roulette, also Santa doesn't really seem to use Yaprak in the final stages... Are we sure Derya is returning? -
They are basically the same as when Manabe was a coach, and he actually manged to win with Brazil in semifinal of VNL 2024. 2025? It was a year of renovation of most teams, they were lucky to get to the semis at WCH. I don't see any improvements. Sorry. The same old Japan.
I mean it's my personal opinion and not solely based on Ferhat, but I also like how Japan has developed. Not everything is about results and it's kinda too early for that and Japan is not Italy or Turkey, where we expect cups each time. Knowing how peculiar Japan can be, I would call it a success story (for now) and the girls seem to have fun to me which is the most important thing
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Idk why you all discredit Ferhat so much. Despite his age IMO he proved to be a decent coach that likes to give chances to many players & has good relationship with them. I really doubt that any other coach would give a chance for Yaprak Erkek during her time at Eczacibasi and look how she performs now. Or how Japan improved since he is a coach.
He is also doing very good with Japan, mind you I think being even semi-decent as a foreign coach in Japan is something great. The ''Italian coaches are just better'' thing is marketing at this point to keep them in high demand
Gio really does deserve that title, maybe Santarelli, ok some more names can make it but it's a bit overstated. -
extra points ? Serbia destroyed them in sets 4 and 5
No lol forget that, I was clicking a billion things (multi-tasking with work) and rewinded the stream to the beginning
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I know you have a good draw, but with Terzic and this starting six, your chances against Türkiye and Italy are very slim, and that slim chance is only thanks to Boskovic.
Wish you look more promising, so we can be more excited about ECH.
Well I wouldn't be so sure, Turkey might not call Ebrar and I don't think Ilkin and Hande are consistent enough to keep Turkey in the top. Uzelac is also clearly the first choice OH for Serbia, Dangubic is a great player esp. when she changes the games coming from the bench but I think we all know Uzelac has a higher ceiling as starter (esp. as an offensive OH, which is Serbia's style) and is like Serbia's KYK-like project this generation. I would say Italy-Serbia-Russia-Brazil-Turkey are very close right now.
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5th set going 25?
I'm so dumb lately
I just went back to set 1 by accident.Interesting match I guess, not much conclusions I can pull yet out of it.
Russia struggles with reception, kinda expected of course. Serbia however, does look better than in VNL, but that only resulted in a very minor win with extra points in the tiebreak and Russia practically handing 2/3 out of 4 points among match points... So Russia's potential might be higher, but for now the team lacks chemistry, I'd kinda pull Lazareva in this team purely for her energy as a sub, I feel like they need someone with her kind of vibes in here. -
5th set going 25?
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Yea this statement is a bit strange? What fabricated reasons were out there
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https://youtube.com/shorts/RscsBdPXEjY?is=1Kh_1I_0lXBvQi2h
😭♥️ Vargas and Hande, Hande's smile took me out.
It's giving: @Serdar and me after we destroyed everyone's peace yet again and declared ourselves victors of the argument 😭
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Where is Yaprak? I wanna see her than Ilikn tbh. Is she lined up or what.
Idk why Santa always ignores her at the end stages of the tournament when she literally plays better than İlkin and Hande...
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You guys are aware delulu is Serdar, right???
They don't even live in the same continents, maybe don't try to be too woke