Is Merisa Valdez already a Japanese citizen? She should be part of NT pool at least.
She's not. She said she wants to get naturalized though
Posts by Phoenix
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Who do they use as a main setter and main attacker?
Main setter is Miya Sato. She was injured but I'm not sure about her current condition. She's not actively playing atm. Main attacker was Ishii, top scorer during WC19
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maybe it's from Gaora? one of their special highlights
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What happens when a player is tested positive? Are Denso's games postponed?
all the matches that were slated for this weekend were postponed. VL has yet to release an official statement when matches will resume.
i think suntory is still having problems too
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Valdes has the jump and hang time of Foluke. It's nuts. At 183cm and athletic af it doesn't matter where she is on court, she just runs and jumps and hangs out in the air until the ball comes her way. You can watch yesterday's match here. It was a fine battle the first two sets. Furukawa took the first one, Hitachi the second. Then Hitachi got tired and Furukawa walked away with it.
Hitachi #2, (I think her name is Aika Ishizaki) is a little squirt at 171cm but she packs a wallop (and she's a super happy camper!). I really thought Hitachi might send Furukawa home. They were digging Valdes and Ishizaki was landing them. But being so short Ishizaki was more prone to getting blocked. When Ishizaki went to the back row (no back attack from her) the other OH, who's actually pretty good too, failed. Hitting errors galore.
Hitachi had a tough match the day before and you could see them getting tired. Making lazy mistakes. Furukawa didn't play in the first round so they were fresh.
Wait sportsbull is streaming for free? I need to catch up
Who's the little giant they're talking about?
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Hitachi's happy go lucky beast #2 Aika Ishizaki lost the tie-break to Furukawa's more serious beast #2 Merisa Valdes.
Too bad. Hitachi had emerged as a barrel of fun. Sad to see them go.
I haven't really seen Valdes play but she's all over the news. 28 points right? I wonder where she's going with this afterwards.
Sakoda and I think Megumi Kurihara also interviewed her after the game
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The government has issued a state of emergency starting tomorrow til Feb 7th
source TBS News
Also from what I'm seeing on twitter several fans are saying most, if not all of the men's team from the lower divisions are withdrawing from the competition
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Okayama has once again the highest rate of infections. Wth is going on over there
They should just make everything remote. Having a live audience isn't necessary and as much as they want to ~connect with fans~ there's no way that's going to happen smoothly if everything keeps getting interrupted.
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Display MoreWhere the hell is Phoenix clearly he slept on this article
Nagaoka has a new interview (published 12/23) for Real Sports which is part of Nikkan Sports and boy is it gloomier than ever. I was pretty gutted to read this. It doesn't sound like she's motivated or possibly just ...fearful.
What I google translated is that she's not sure she'll reach a certain point where she can be great again. Her movements are very limited and she always fears that the ball could hit her left knee.
During the Hinotori remote match she was at 50% then during V.League 1st Leg she was at 70% (except she wavers on this). There's also a part about how expectations have become unbearable for her. The whole Olympics thing is still up in the air and she diverts to a topic about being satisfied just playing VB in front of her family again especially her older sister who was the reason she started playing VB.
Let's not forget how Ebata said that people kept telling her to just go with the flow and enjoy volleyball but Ebata says once you're at a certain caliber, you can't just have "fun" because people will always have their expectations and reputation is everything. It's similar to what Nagaoka says in this interview.
sidenote: I couldn't access this on my pc, it took forever to load so I suggest viewing it on your phone
https://real-sports.jp/page/articles/471510286004651049
I'm still out of town and it's hard to get decent wifi here. It's a real struggle just getting this forum to load. I'll read that when I get back.
Nagaoka always sounds so grim in current interviews so that doesn't surprise me anymore.
sitenoise thanks for the links!
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After Empress Cup, it's gonna go straight to Hinotori selection for VNL right?
Is Sato ok now?
After this season, I don't think Nakada should be choosing Nabeya and Iwasaka again.
I think they still have that All Star game happening unless they cancelled the one for women's since the men's division already had theirs but it was those fake Haikyu teams
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WILL WE GET THAT REVENGE???
It's a little late for revenge at this point
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What are the schedules for tomorrow?
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sitenoise First half best 6 do you agree?
Drews, Shimamura, Koga, Mayu, Yokota,
Seki -
I was wondering about NEC crowds. Seemed over 50% to me, but shouldn't that be the responsibility of the Arena?
I'm not so sure about that. I think they accommodated even more people after the success of their first homegame because they added stuff to their menu including beer and yakitori.
Women's basketball and football are completely remote for all teams. I don't know if figure skating allow crowds since it's such a huge thing in Japan.
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I don't think there's a men's thread right? but anyway since people come here for info I might as well drop this
Mayu's brother tested positive for Corona
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASND935G3ND9UTQP005.html
There are also players from Suntory Sunbirds who tested positive that's why they backed out of the Empress Cup.
So far, I don't think there has been any reports from the women's division so hopefully it stays that way. I read somewhere that NEC was given a warning for not following the audience limitation for their homegame but it's like way too late
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I didn't know she opened a yt channel. I wanna check that out. Is it anything like Kim Yeong Koung's Bread Unnie?
Are there any players being compared to her? I don't think Kurogo and Mayu Ishikawa have the 2Saori vibe. Mayu's comparison is more with her brother.
Her youtube is nothing like Bread Unnie. For one thing, it's mostly about food and trendy stuff and it's a joint channel with her husband
Saori & J Style
latest video
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Display MoreJust I was watching some olds news of her in vakif and in gala
I don't see all matches but in vakif she was bench right?
At least the games I saw she was at bench
And in gala she was starter but she didn't show a level like i was used to
What happened to her?
Like I said i only see few matches,ehat was her performance of her in turkey?
I don't really know I was 12 at the time she played for Vakifbank. That was way before I started following volleyball
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Kinuko Tanida/Itokawa has passed away. She was the ace of Oriental Witches, Japan's 1964 Olympic volleyball team that won gold. She was supposed to be the torchbearer at Tokyo Olympics