Posts by Polish96

and... Of course Kaczmarek was the one to miss the final spike

Kaczmarek is probably Slovenis's best player today

How come Slovenia is always so hard to beat for us?

Germany seems dangerous... They could have won against France too. Hard to believe we won't be seeing them at Olympics

France is horrible today

How come Iran is so bad this year ?

Wilfredo "Ace Machine" Leon

LEEEEEOOOON 7 ACES ALREADY, AGAINST SERBIA OF ALL TEAMS

Leon show

were there really no better coaches available for Russia than Sammelvuo ?

Quote from WZP

Scandalous decision by Korean referee at 14-14 in tie between France and Germany. 👎👎👎

Yeah. The refeereing as a whole was horrible this match. Shame bc the match was very good

POLSAT SPORT, our major Volleyball broadcaster will actually show some qualifying games

Men's Schedule for this week (CEST)

6.05, 16:00 Slovakia - Switzerland, POLSAT SPORT

7.05 ,13:20 Azerbaijan - Montenegro, POLSAT SPORT EXTRA

7.05, 15:50 Belarus - Portugal, POLSAT SPORT NEWS
7.05, 18:20 Croatia - Netherlands, POLSAT SPORT NEWS

8.05, 13:20 Montenegro - Greece , POLSAT SPORT EXTRA

8.05, 15:50 Portugal - Norway, POLSAT SPORT EXTRA

8.05, 18:50 Hungary - Norway, POLSAT SPORT NEWS

9.05, 13:20 Greece - Azerbaijan, POLSAT SPORT NEWS

9.05, 15:50 Norway - Belarus, POLSAT SPORT

Looks like a surprising volley weekend is ahead of me, I will try to watch as many games as I can

What a surprise, our "main" Volleyball TV station, POLSAT SPORT will broadcast some of the qualifying games, both female and male

Girls schedule for this week (CEST):

6.05 14:50 Slovenia - Belarus, Polsat Sport News

8.05 14:50 Slovenia - Czechia, Polsat Sport News

8.05 16:50 France - Hungary, Polsat Sport News

8.05 19:50 Denmark - Israel, Polsat Sport News

9.05, 17:50 France - Israel, Polsat Sport News

Well, first legs has been played in Qualification Group B and and two legs in Group C and no real surprises so far (well, I guess Bosnia winning a set against Macedonia could be considered one). Israel looked pretty bad against Austria, I expected more. But if Austria qualifies to EuroVolley, maybe they will finally get their first win in 53 years or so.

Day 1 Results

GROUP B
Israel 0-3 Austria (25-27 / 23-25 / 20-25)

GROUP C

North Macedonia 3-1 Bosnia & Herzegovina (27-25 / 25-21 / 23-25 / 25-19)

Day 2 Results

GROUP B

Turkey 3-0 Bosnia & Herzegovina (25-15 / 25-17 / 25-18)

Standings so far:

GROUP B

GROUP C

Quote from avid

Madden has the same problem as FIFA. There's no competition on the market because EA bought all the rights. So the games are essentially the same each year, just as money grabs for the pay-to-win modes.

I don't think EA would ever make a volleyball game though, it wouldn't earn them the same amount of money

I mean, I kinda agree with the original poster. Volleyball is actually a VERY popular sport worldwide. Poland, Italy, Iran, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Russia, Serbia...the level of competition in both male and female volleyball is becoming better and better, so we also have totally new countries (like Slovenia) joining the scene.

According to Google Trends, when it comes to popularity of Olympic Team sports during the last 5 years, only Football (obviously) and Basketball are bigger than Volley. People were generally searching for more info on volleyball than on Ice Hockey, Handball or even Rugby. look here

I think if they developed a Volleyball game, it would actualy sell pretty well. I mean, if they find baseball or even NCAA games affordable, why not volleyball?

NOOOO!
Please, if anyone is going to make a professional volleyball game, let it not be EA! Nearly all of their games suck nowadays, even the sport ones. Madden NFL was one of their biggest titles some years ago, and now, well... https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/madden-nfl-21

And everything is clear. Latvia will make its second ever appearance at the Eurovolley (huge congrats to this team. I really enjoyed their style of play), while Spain, which reached the play-off stage in 2019 may not qualify at all. Everything depends on the result from other groups. Based on the 2019 Eurovolley qualification results, 12 points should be more than enough to be amongst the 5 best 2nd ranked teams, but we'll see.

All in all, it was a pretty interesting group, despite Spain being the clear favorites. I'm personally very happy for Cyprus. Two wins and five points is a great final result for them, one that they'd probably accept no questions asked before the tournament started. Their team spirit was incredible, I think the atmosphere in the Cypriot team must have been fantastic. This was their first major tournament since 2017 and it's great they managed to perform well on their home soil. I think if they had a good budget to cover the expenses, they might actually become quite a decent team, the potential is definitely there, especially their block was outstanding. I hope this isn't the last we saw of this team.

All in all, in these dark times, it was great to see some competitive senior men's volleyball again, even if the level was not really what I got used to after watching countless World/European championship matches. I hope the other qualification groups will be as exciting as this one.

Day 6 results

Spain 3-0 Moldova / sets: 25-19 / 25-22 / 25-23

Latvia 3-0 Cyprus / sets: 25-15 / 25-21 / 25-23

Final Standings:

Quote from Marcus

When did this happen? Can you remember which set, maybe even the score?

Don't remember the exact score, but it was during tie-break, I think circa the 7th or 8th point for Cyprus.

Spain wins 2 sets against Moldova and guarantees themselves a place amongst the top 2 teams in the group. Now the question is who will win it and qualify directly - Spain or Latvia. Latvia has, on paper, an easier task, since all they have to do is beat Cyprus, but the host team showed incredible motivation those last couple of days and I don't think this will be an easy match at all.

Wow, who would expect this group to be so competitive? Spain was supposed to win this easily, followed by Latvia, while Moldova and Cyprus were supposed to be happy with every set they win. The reality turned out to be much different. It's only 1 leg to go, but we still have 3 teams that can win the group and qualify directly.

After suffering yesterday's defeat, Spain beats the group leader. Since Spain managed to beat Latvia it was basically certain Cyprus lost all chances of qualifying and it was made clear when Cyprus lost 2 sets against Moldova. Still, today's win is another huge success for them. They beat two much stronger teams in a row. Hopefully this will give them the strength to play well against Latvia.

Side note: I haven't seen someone get sent off the pitch in volleyball for a long time until today referee showed Bahov yellow and red at the same time

Day 5 Results

Latvia 1-3 Spain / sets: 25-27 / 25-18 / 26-28 / 22-25

Moldova 2-3 Cyprus / sets: 20-25 / 25-19 / 25-19 / 22-25 / 10-15

Standings so far:

Tommorow 2 final games will be played, both very important: Spain - Moldova & Latvia - Cyprus