Posts by secretk

Actually I don't claim that volleyball is purely man sport, but I also don't think that it's women sport. I claim that there are differences in men's and women's volleyball. And those differences could make some people to prefer one above the other.

When someone is arguing that much about overshadowing they are insecure. People are good in different areas and people should thrive to get better at what they want, not at what they think that they should be since someone is. Those arguments that men are overshadowing women were valid when for the same type of job even in the same company men got more money than women. I wouldn't say that now the difference is that big, nor I would say that men don't admit when woman is good in area where it's primary theirs. But men and women do strive in different type of jobs even. I'm not working in mostly men job because no one gives chance to women to work there. There are not that many women in this area (there are, just the percentage is lower) because women don't have interest in this. Many times when feminists are arguing about something, they come up with examples in areas where actually the women in general are less so it's normal that the examples of women succeeding will be less. And actually seriously what is the idea of those feminists? They want to be aggressive and competitive as men in sports? Because that requires testosterone. Now if they want more testosterone then I am not sure that they want to be women.

I don't claim that women having small break downs often is a bad thing, but in sport we need to be focused and all those small breakdowns shape the game differently. Like I said testosterone (main male hormone) + adrenaline equals aggression. Aggression in volleyball means powerful spikes. Just like in life if men are frustrated they show anger and aggression, not crying for long hours. It's biological. Estrogen (main female hormone) + adrenaline results in anxiousness and euphoria. Euphoria makes the brain to go overdrive which is anything but concentration. And yes there are women who have more testosterone (not like men, but more than what's normal for women) and they could be competitive as much as men, but those are the exceptions. Most women don't have enough testosterone to be competitive in sports in the way men are. So they need to be motivated differently.

Due to these biological differences between women and men there is no way the sport volleyball to be exactly alike for men and women. Yes they follow the same rules, but the whole dynamic is different.

The topic about differences between genders is a long one and it's a bit off topic. As a woman working mostly with men a job that requires logical thinking I could tell you that for sure there is difference between the way women and men are thinking. We all think (unless we are morons). The ability to think is not relying on logic or making decisions relying on logic. Both genders have advantages and disadvantages and that's the fun in life. However men are more stable usually in the sense that women have small break downs more often than men who have one big break down, but then they are fine for long time. That's because women express their feelings easier and don't bottle them up like men.

For brains complexity and Intuiton I could talk a lot since biology (especially neuroscience) is my hobby, but there is no point in this. However Intuition is not sixth sense in the sense we believe it is. Our brain uses our sensors to gather information from the outer world, then our brains processes this information in the background and we don't even realize it and then out of nowhere we come to conclusion and we think that it's Intuition. So the faster we process this information from the outer world, the easier to make our Intuition working.

I don't agree that females are better in controlling themselves. One of the reasons why I don't get along with women even though I'm a woman is the fact that most women around me do stuff they know that are wrong for them and will hurt them, but they are still doing them, because they feel strongly about someone or something. That's not control. Of course luckily not all women are like that, but the percentage of women doing this is higher that the men doing this.

I also agree that some feminists go over board with those female rights. There is no need in shouting in the world that women have rights, that women are as smart as men, as athletic as men, as powerful as men. What's the point? The idea indeed is not to be the same, the idea is that both women and men could be successful in the areas they are good at it. And that's valid for every person. Every person is good in something and they should thrive to succeed in this area. And yeah women weightlifters is not something I want to watch.

Actually I think that sports are about winning. It's not about which teams played better or more beautiful (even though sometimes this might be vital for the win), it's about the team that won the game and got the medals and the cups. That's how we measure teams and players success. As for the entertainment part, we are entertained by different things so we choose what to watch and have fun with.

That's true the brain usually has more complex path in women than men, but you don't have time in sport to process things. It's all about action in the moment there. What you say about women is what helps them to live longer than men. In sports it's all in the moment, so for me it's important who grasps the logic faster and works in simplistic way than who has more complex logic in general. And who thrives in logic and tactics. You said it yourself in women's volleyball they are now introducing the tactics. Men actually prefer to go in tactics. Yes they are all powerful which is why only power doesn't help. Physical strength is something that nowadays almost all male volleyball players have, so it's not enough. They have to rely on something more. That's the reason for tactics in men's volleyball because without this a win of the team would be pure luck and that happens once or twice, but it's not consistent.

Women can be quite manipulative, but since volleyball is not a contact sport having good acting skills doesn't help that much. Not like in soccer (football) where good diving skills could earn you penalty. And the example you gave still shows that women use emotions. Using logic means to be motivated by logic. How you try to present your actions and earn your point is something else. And yes it's pragmatism also, but it also shows that there is no emotion. You don't care about how things look and how they fit in the background (even though this is logic itself) you care what you get out of this and which has the better features.

Either way this is out of the scope in this discussion. I said why I think that it looks like women volleyball is more popular here. There are a lot of factors like I said. I'm not sure that overall in the world women's volleyball is more popular than men's volleyball. I think that they are overall even. The rest is personal preferences.

My opinion is that women and men's volleyball represent different ideas and have different styles. I wouldn't say that volleyball is women sport, because men's sport actually uses the male players' strength enough. The point there is that physical strength is not enough which is why tactics and strategy is needed. So if someone doesn't like power they would prefer women's volleyball which due to lack of such power relies on other methods. If someone have nothing against power, but want tactics they will watch men's volleyball.

That's true, but the games I watch in women's volleyball are quite often one sided. The team that starts good is good, the team that starts bad is bad (if it's not the whole game, it's the set). Quite frankly for me this is boring. I want to watch an even game, playing point by point. Not to say that emotional crush doesn't happen in men's volleyball, but once it happens everyone is discussing it and is frustrated with this. In women's volleyball the reaction is different. Also adrenaline + testosterone results in aggression in the sport (hence powerful spikes), adrenaline + estrogen has different result. Plus I love the power.

I love tactics in sport. I'm athletically challenged person , but I'm mathematician. I watch sports for tactics and strategy. I don't watch it for single good actions, I watch it for the whole team having strategy to play. Logic for me is far more helpful in tactics than emotions. Emotions could help you contain self confidence which is yes important, but logic can help you grasp the tactics and to do the mind power game. For me it's all connected.

This is still my opinion though and personal preference. We all like different things.

We will have to agree to disagree. It depends on how you see mental strength. Here is what I meant.

Women in most cases base their decisions on emotions, men on logic. Sport in general generates adrenalin and emotions. For this reason if the game starts good for female team they are strong, otherwise not so much. Hence the big difference in the end results in a set. In men you have close results in the sets more often which I prefer to be honest because for me that's more dynamic and more interesting. Men in most cases are not out of the set because they got blocked twice in a roll. They manage to overcome this in 5/10 minutes (when you have male player that is unable to do this you notice it very quickly). Women need more time. Here is simple example - woman will buy pink laptop because it's cute. Man will buy laptop because it has certain features. It happens in lots of cases. It also happens in volleyball and other sports.

Good point about men and contact sports.

No idea, but it totally depends. For me men's volleyball is more interesting. First I agree that I watch volleyball for the game, not for the eye candy. If I want eye candy I will watch movies and pictures. Not to mention that being woman I find actually male players sexy enough and definitely sexier than female players. I'm sorry, but I have different idea of sexy women - check out rhythmic gymnastics and you will see women with female gentle features. Most volleyball female players don't fit that much in this category for me (personal preference of course).

I actually find the women volleyball with lots of ups and downs because in general women have a bit weaker mentality than men. However I watch sports also for mental strength so I prefer men's volleyball.

And I disagree that in men's volleyball all is power. There is tactics, strategy and technique enough.

My impression is that most countries are either good in men's volleyball or women's volleyball aside Brazil, Russia and USA. For example in our country men's volleyball is definitely more popular than women. At least I have this impression. So it depends on the country. If here (in Bulgaria) men's volleyball is more successful than women's and it's shown more on TV it will be more popular. If in some other country women's volleyball team is more successful this will be more popular.

Then there is the fact that in general men are not the ones to post lengthy posts in forums. And since mostly men watch men's volleyball (not that there are no women that watch, it's just I have the impression that most posters here that watch men's volleyball are men) they don't post that much. That's why it looks like women's volleyball is more popular.

I agree that it wasn't Sokolov's best game. I wouldn't say that his performance was poor, but let's just say that he was a bit inconsistent.

I also think too that Cuneo should stop using him as middleblocker, because it doesn't work this way. Not that Rossi is good MB, but he is not worse than Sokolov in my opinion. I respect too that Piazza listened to Grbic and didn't dismiss his opinion. That doesn't happen that often. And yes Wijsmans deserved to be the MVP of this game. Not that he didn't make mistakes (they all did), but he also delivered in crucial moments of the game.

However if Cuneo play like this Trentino would have it easy to advance in the final.

On the other hand I think that Piacenza is a team that could run Macerata for their money. Piacenza are very stable team, very strong and I think that they have really good chances to qualify for the final.

I think that Henno is better than De Pandis because he is more experienced. However De Pandis has the chance to become really good libero and I do think that he is better than Bari and should be started in Italian NT. As a whole Cuneo has some unstable players (Sokolov and Ngapeth) and some experienced players (Grbic, Wijsmans) that sometimes can get tired. So it all depends whether the experienced guys are full rested and the youngers are stable. If that's valid, they could play good and they could even potentially beat some good team that have slight hesitations (personally for me this is the reason why Cuneo beat Macerata and Trentino this season). I don't think that they could do in more than one game in this playoff series though.

In Piazza's defense it wasn't Sokolov's best game for sure. He was good, just not that brilliant. However that final point was really good.

The first two sets though Cuneo played terrible. They needed the third set to start playing. Did they think that the first two were just training? With such game I don't see how they will win against Trentino.

Also I hope that Cuneo will play with this formation and leave Sokolov as opposite. It's better this way and today Rossi had really good game.

Yeah great accomplishment By Hristo Zlatanov. I couldn't watch the game last night because I was watching Cuneo, but Piacenza have really good team and Holt is usually good in serving.

I'm just a volleyball fan and I don't pretend to understand the game in big details, but for me Cuneo was better in the 4th and 5th set. First of all this way Sokolov is not wasted half of the time. Second of all it's easier for him to block when he has help from another middle blocker (for example Rossi). Not to mention Rossi actually has good float serve. For me they should try with this rotation. I actually think that they had to try this rotation in the Champions League finale, but like I said I'm just a fan.

Quote from Diesse14

and I forgot to write in my previous post that I hope that Trento next year will find a better libero! Bari and also Colaci aren't enough for this team! today Bari received as many as balls as Kazyiski (and this is not normal for a libero) with a lower %: there are plenty of liberos better than them...!!
trento-vibo: http://www.legavolley.it/TabellinoGara.asp?IdGara=25702

anyway congrats to Latina!

Bari and the post libero in general is the weakest one in Trentino. They really need a better one.

Unfortunately I didn't find good stream for the game and watched slideshow, but from what I saw last night Trentino weren't at their best for sure. They got the third set because of Vibo's errors, not because they were that good. In the first set there was no blocking at all and they didn't play good in defense (not to mention that there was a carried ball for the 25th point of Trentino in the first set). Djuric was the only one that had good game actually.

And congrats to Latina indeed.

It's not that difficult to find better libero than Bari. I like Trentino, but he is just not good libero. I think that he is the weakest link in the team.

I've been watching Cuneo since the start of the season and De Pandis is getting better by the games he plays. I definitely like him more than Bari.

I think that they take in account only the stats in the Final Four games. And those statistics are nowhere to be found in CEV site. That's the only way where something could make sense. Still I was a bit surprised at the individual awards.

Well it's hard to say. Sokolov played better yesterday I agree, but today he was useless as MB. And given the fact that as a whole Cuneo sucks at blocking I'm not sure how much it helped them that he was just standing there. At least as an opposite he could have tried something and scored some points.

For me all of Cuneo's players made mistakes - Ngapeth errors in attack, Wejsmans wasn't good in reception, Sokolov wasn't that good in serving in the beginning and not that efficient in attack and not good in blocking at all, Grbic was better yesterday (today he had some bad passes), Kohut made too much serving errors. De Pandis was pretty consistent, but still worse than yesterday. I definitely saw lower balls for Sokolov and as a result he was caught in block. I also saw inaccurate balls that lead to just dropping the ball in Lokomotiv's side. And Novosibirsks were really good with the tips at the net so they dug out most of those situations. Grbic is a favorite setter for me and he wasn't terrible today, but he was better yesterday. I guess he was a bit tired after the game against Zaksa.

It's good for Lokomotiv to win as hosts because they had good support and those fans would have been disappointed if they had lost. And they fought hard against Zenit yesterday to qualify for this final. Overall though the errors today were more than yesterday (in both games) so it wasn't exactly the highest level of volleyball.

Well personally for me the final was 5 setter because both team didn't exactly play that high volleyball and not because they were that good, so yes Trentino and Macerata could have made more interesting final for me.

The formula however is such that they dropped out.

Well for me Cuneo played better yesterday, so they could do more (in defense and serving were better yesterday). I do agree though that without decent MB is kind of hard to win. Kohut is not that brilliant MD and Sokolov is not MB at all. So they basically have no working block.

And I agree that Loko should have been far better in blocking given the height of their players, but they weren't.

Yes Butko was definitely faster, but for me part of the reason for this loss was the errors Cuneo made. They gave them too much points.

That reminds me Cuneo were terrible in reception and defense too. There wasn't any element where they were decent actually.

Novosibirsk played well and Butko was definitely better than Grbic in this game, but Cuneo were disappointing. So many errors in service, Grbic was predictable, the balls he set up weren't high enough to avoid the block. Overall Novosibirsk definitely played better and Cuneo definitely didn't play at their best.

PERSONAL DETAILS

1. Nickname: Koni
2. Hair color: dark brown/black
3. Eye color: brown
4. Star sign: Leo
5. Pets:
6. Obsessions: music, math, bioinformatics (especially Spanish flu and all type of viruses), sports
7. Bad habits: I could be lazy sometimes
8. Phobias: heights

ABOUT YOU

1. What makes you happy? simple things like listening to music, dancing
2. What irritates you? people who invade my privacy
3. What was the last music you bought? I haven't bought anything in a long time
4. What was the last book you read? Sherlock Holmes book
5. What was the last thing you ate? I don't remember
6. What's the best thing you've ever got? a music keyboard
7. What was your most embarrassing moment? I don't have embarrassing moments, only awkward ones
8. If you could go back in time and be a part of any historical event, what would it be? I have no desire to return in the past. If I were able to time travel I would prefer the future
9. What's the funniest joke you've ever heard?
10. Got any hidden talents? Singing
11. Who is your hero? None
12. Describe yourself in 3 words: weird, private person, extremely logical and self-controlled

FAVORITES

1. Color: black, white, beige
2. Animal:
3. Sport to follow: football, volleyball, rhythmic gymnastics
4. Sport to play: none
5. Sport team: football - Real Madrid and Spanish NT, volleyball - Trentino and Bulgarian NT
6. TV series: ReGenesis, Homeland
7. Movie: Inception
8. Actor/actress: Damian Lewis, Jesse Spencer
9. Music genre: almost everything including classical
10. Song: Each day different, but the song that I most like is In and out of love (Armin Van Buuren)
11. PC/video game: I don't play video games
12. Food: I love yogurt
13. Drink: sparkling water
14. Ice cream flavor: I don't eat ice cream
15. Place:
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17. Day of the year: each day

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1. Coke or Pepsi? None, I drink only water and sparkling water
2. Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla
3. Early morning or late night? Late night
4. Cat or dog? Dog
5. Christmas or Easter? Christmas
6. Tea or coffee? Tea, most specifically Roiboos
7. Cup or mug? Cup
8. Glasses or contacts? Glasses
9. Acoustic or electric? Acoustic
10. Sneakers or high heels? Sneakers! I hate high heels.
11. Ground or table tennis? Table
12. FC Barcelona or Real Madrid? Real Madrid as a club, but in the last years Barcelona have been better excluding last week where RM beat them twice.
13. Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? Neither. I don't like fantasy books
14. Working hard or hardly working? Working efficiently (hard when it's necessary and hardly when it's not)
15. Half full or half empty? Why care? The substance is the important thing.

I don't know. I definitely felt that Macerata didn't play at their best, but on the other hand I know that Trentino could play better than this. Someone above me mentioned that Juantorena's serve is still not that strong weapon it used to be.

For sure this loss doesn't cost Macerata the title in Italy, because nothing is decided yet. On the other hand though they have for sure good chances to advance in Champions League, but I think that the rest 4 games for them are more difficult than the ones of Trentino in Italy and given the fact that they will play in two tournaments it's not that surprising that they might hold back and not play in 100 %.

Of course Trentino shouldn't care about this, they play only in Italian league so they are focused there and hoping for the best outcome which is becoming champions. We will see if it will happen.

I liked Stokr the most, so it is not surprise that he was the MVP of this game. He is very consistent. He might not risk that much on serving, but he rarely makes mistakes. He demonstrated great sense in defense and that's admirable, because not all diagonals play like this in defense. He didn't make stupid mistakes in attack. And he was 67 % effective in attack.

Bari as usual is not the strongest point in Trentino. Kaziyski and Juantorena and the middle blockers were good too, but for me Stokr was the stablest one tonight.