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Post by ace35 on Sept 9, 2019 15:26:13 GMT -5
I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that China and USA are favorites to take this title with Brazil and The Netherlands possible dark horse contenders. All teams but Serbia should be sending their best possible rosters. Should be a decent tournament where we will see how this “new blend” USA team fairs against tougher competition. I’m excited! I wish we could drop Kenya and add Italy for a truly rocking competition but....oh well 🤷🏻♂️ In 2015 USA beat China but lost in 5 to Serbia and got swept by Russia thus taking bronze. For this 2019 edition I expect to see The Netherlands and Brazil over perform while Russia and Serbia (due to roster) to under perform. In the battle of the middle teams Japan should emerge on top and might even topple some of the top teams with their hallmark elite defending. If the Dominican Republic had Castillo (is recovering from an injury) then I would give them more hype but we shall see what they accomplish. I expect Argentina, Korea, Cameroon and Kenya to be the bottom 4. I’m waiting for all rosters to be official before I make my final predictions. Right now my top three: 1: China 2: USA 3: Netherlands I wouldn't expect anything from Netherlands, if I were you. Not just because of the tiredness factor (like all European squads, they played Eurovolley with their strongest squad, nothing held back, and this will be their 4th competition of the summer, like with Serbia), but because they were absolutely embarrassed by Turkey in the quarters. The competition showed (or confirmed, depending on your POV) that Lonneke is at the tail-end of her prime, where her (relative) lack of influence for the matches's outcome at the very highest level is becoming increasingly obvious, and neither Anne Buijs nor Celeste Plak have learned to either receive or anything about ball-control, and Laura Dijkema remains as pedestrian and uninspiring as ever (plus, for whatever is worth, their middles, with the exception of de Kruijf, have played sub-par). When Maret Balkenstein retires (and she is 31), this generation, the greatest one in Dutch history, will be in free-fall, and they would have gone out not even achieving half of their potential, with only a couple of European silvers (and a few 4th places).
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2019 16:07:29 GMT -5
Serbia has not announced their roster yet but they will leave for Japan only on Wednesday. I'm not sure what time they will be departing and with the time difference, I think they might be arriving in Japan 1 day before the match against Brazil.
Serbia's bench could still challenge Brazil and USA, but I don't think they will be ready to play this weekend already. Would have been better if Serbia vs Brazil and USA were scheduled for the 2nd week of the tournament.
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Post by ToddyJ on Sept 9, 2019 16:36:34 GMT -5
I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that China and USA are favorites to take this title with Brazil and The Netherlands possible dark horse contenders. All teams but Serbia should be sending their best possible rosters. Should be a decent tournament where we will see how this “new blend” USA team fairs against tougher competition. I’m excited! I wish we could drop Kenya and add Italy for a truly rocking competition but....oh well 🤷🏻♂️ In 2015 USA beat China but lost in 5 to Serbia and got swept by Russia thus taking bronze. For this 2019 edition I expect to see The Netherlands and Brazil over perform while Russia and Serbia (due to roster) to under perform. In the battle of the middle teams Japan should emerge on top and might even topple some of the top teams with their hallmark elite defending. If the Dominican Republic had Castillo (is recovering from an injury) then I would give them more hype but we shall see what they accomplish. I expect Argentina, Korea, Cameroon and Kenya to be the bottom 4. I’m waiting for all rosters to be official before I make my final predictions. Right now my top three: 1: China 2: USA 3: Netherlands I wouldn't expect anything from Netherlands, if I were you. Not just because of the tiredness factor (like all European squads, they played Eurovolley with their strongest squad, nothing held back, and this will be their 4th competition of the summer, like with Serbia), but because they were absolutely embarrassed by Turkey in the quarters. The competition showed (or confirmed, depending on your POV) that Lonneke is at the tail-end of her prime, where her (relative) lack of influence for the matches's outcome at the very highest level is becoming increasingly obvious, and neither Anne Buijs nor Celeste Plak have learned to either receive or anything about ball-control, and Laura Dijkema remains as pedestrian and uninspiring as ever (plus, for whatever is worth, their middles, with the exception of de Kruijf, have played sub-par). When Maret Balkenstein retires (and she is 31), this generation, the greatest one in Dutch history, will be in free-fall, and they would have gone out not even achieving half of their potential, with only a couple of European silvers (and a few 4th places). All teams have off seasons. I wouldn’t count them out. I also think many on here think Serbia has a deeper bench than they actually do. Boskovic and Mihajlovic aren’t even on the roster and if Ognjenovic, Veljkovic and S. Popovic don’t make the roster then you can expect the same finish from them as in the VNL. I just don’t see them finishing well and they shouldn’t for not taking this tournament seriously.
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Post by dragan11 on Sept 9, 2019 16:43:40 GMT -5
The Netherlands will be without Robin de Kruijf (rest) and Nika Daalderop (injury).
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Post by ace35 on Sept 9, 2019 17:00:16 GMT -5
I wouldn't expect anything from Netherlands, if I were you. Not just because of the tiredness factor (like all European squads, they played Eurovolley with their strongest squad, nothing held back, and this will be their 4th competition of the summer, like with Serbia), but because they were absolutely embarrassed by Turkey in the quarters. The competition showed (or confirmed, depending on your POV) that Lonneke is at the tail-end of her prime, where her (relative) lack of influence for the matches's outcome at the very highest level is becoming increasingly obvious, and neither Anne Buijs nor Celeste Plak have learned to either receive or anything about ball-control, and Laura Dijkema remains as pedestrian and uninspiring as ever (plus, for whatever is worth, their middles, with the exception of de Kruijf, have played sub-par). When Maret Balkenstein retires (and she is 31), this generation, the greatest one in Dutch history, will be in free-fall, and they would have gone out not even achieving half of their potential, with only a couple of European silvers (and a few 4th places). All teams have off seasons. I wouldn’t count them out. I also think many on here think Serbia has a deeper bench than they actually do. Boskovic and Mihajlovic aren’t even on the roster and if Ognjenovic, Veljkovic and S. Popovic don’t make the roster then you can expect the same finish from them as in the VNL. I just don’t see them finishing well and they shouldn’t for not taking this tournament seriously. Season...THIS season, you mean? And all of the issues I mentioned are long-standing, it's just that Lonneke's drop means she can't mask all of them against the strongest competition any more. Plus, no Robin de Kruijf, who is along with Lonneke and Maret, their most important player, BY FAR (it's funny that you should mention the supposed lack of depth for Serbia, considering Netherlands are much, much worse in that regard).
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Post by ToddyJ on Sept 9, 2019 23:17:56 GMT -5
Not sending a top roster to this a year out from the olympics is silly. This is the last major tournament I think. Is there anything besides VNL next year? Agreed. Serbia is the best in Europe but I too wonder if China, USA and Brazil could best Serbia at the Olympics. And no...next year is just the VNL with a few weeks of a break and then the Olympics.
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Post by ToddyJ on Sept 9, 2019 23:45:13 GMT -5
All teams have off seasons. I wouldn’t count them out. I also think many on here think Serbia has a deeper bench than they actually do. Boskovic and Mihajlovic aren’t even on the roster and if Ognjenovic, Veljkovic and S. Popovic don’t make the roster then you can expect the same finish from them as in the VNL. I just don’t see them finishing well and they shouldn’t for not taking this tournament seriously. Season...THIS season, you mean? And all of the issues I mentioned are long-standing, it's just that Lonneke's drop means she can't mask all of them against the strongest competition any more. Plus, no Robin de Kruijf, who is along with Lonneke and Maret, their most important player, BY FAR (it's funny that you should mention the supposed lack of depth for Serbia, considering Netherlands are much, much worse in that regard). We all have our favorites on here. Serbia is clearly one of yours. There isn't anything wrong with that. I just don't like it when people on here over hype certain teams. There is no clear dominant team like Cuba in the 90's or Brazil on the men's side during the 00's. The game is growing and evolving. This is a good thing! My argument here is that not one team is a favorite and I think that any one of China, Brazil, Netherlands, USA, Italy, Turkey, Serbia....hell even Russia if they are playing at their highest level are capable of winning OG. Serbia will likely not break the top 5 at the World Cup with out a least some of the "A Team" present. This move might hurt them in the end. As the World cup is one of the three major tournaments in an Olympic quad....it should be respected and treated as such. Since Terzic and Serbia clearly don't care about it...then some other European team should have gotten a chance (Italy/Turkey). It looks bad when the #1 ranked team doesn't send it's A Team to a major tournament. Now the FIVB is partially to blame here as the order of tournaments this season is backwards. World Cup should have been first with 2 Olympic berths on the line AND crucial world ranking points. Then the Continental qualifiers should have happened around this time with the IOQT happening in January but that's another conversation for another thread.
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Post by ToddyJ on Sept 10, 2019 0:14:37 GMT -5
Argentina's Roster S: Mayer, Benitez OPP: Fresco, Piccolo OH: Nizetich, Rodriguez, Soria, Salinas, Simian MB: Lazcano, Michel Tosi, Farriol L: Rizzo, Gonzalez This looks identical to their IOQT roster. I liked their fire. Hopefully they can make an impact.
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Post by ace35 on Sept 10, 2019 3:04:47 GMT -5
Season...THIS season, you mean? And all of the issues I mentioned are long-standing, it's just that Lonneke's drop means she can't mask all of them against the strongest competition any more. Plus, no Robin de Kruijf, who is along with Lonneke and Maret, their most important player, BY FAR (it's funny that you should mention the supposed lack of depth for Serbia, considering Netherlands are much, much worse in that regard). We all have our favorites on here. Serbia is clearly one of yours. There isn't anything wrong with that. I just don't like it when people on here over hype certain teams. There is no clear dominant team like Cuba in the 90's or Brazil on the men's side during the 00's. The game is growing and evolving. This is a good thing! My argument here is that not one team is a favorite and I think that any one of China, Brazil, Netherlands, USA, Italy, Turkey, Serbia....hell even Russia if they are playing at their highest level are capable of winning OG. Serbia will likely not break the top 5 at the World Cup with out a least some of the "A Team" present. This move might hurt them in the end. As the World cup is one of the three major tournaments in an Olympic quad....it should be respected and treated as such. Since Terzic and Serbia clearly don't care about it...then some other European team should have gotten a chance (Italy/Turkey). It looks bad when the #1 ranked team doesn't send it's A Team to a major tournament. Now the FIVB is partially to blame here as the order of tournaments this season is backwards. World Cup should have been first with 2 Olympic berths on the line AND crucial world ranking points. Then the Continental qualifiers should have happened around this time with the IOQT happening in January but that's another conversation for another thread. Where have I argued anything about Serbia's chances at Olympics? Or that they are the dominant team in today's volleyball? Please don't use straw-man arguments. While we are talking about favorites, Netherlands are actually my 2nd favorite team, after Serbia. Manon Flier and de Kruijf are among my top 5 favorite players of all time. I'm just realistic about their chances. They are what in English idiom would be called "poor man's Serbia" in that they have almost identical strengths (except that Dutch strengths are clearly weaker than Serbia's) and almost identical weaknesses (but more pronounced). The only true differences between 2 teams are that the Dutch have an elite defense specialist, which the other team doesn't, and that Serbia has a genius setter, which the other doesn't. As for how much Lonneke, Maret and Robin are important to them and their play, let's just say that, without them, this generation of Netherlands would be 2014-2018 Bulgaria 2.0, in that they would be a poorly constructed team of some 5-6 stars, whose style of play and strengths would be the opposite of complimentary, and their ceiling would be one 4th place in Eurovolley, and maybe a couple of Final 6 placements in VNL. Now, don't get me wrong, they could still surprise and achieve top 4 finish at World Cup (or repeat that at Tokyo, for that matter). After all, KYK's God mode notwithstanding , no one could have predicted Korea's 4th place in London 2012. It's just very unlikely. And I agree about your last paragraph, that should have been the way to do it. Except I think FIVB have only themselves to blame for clearly negatively impacting the importance of World Cup, no one else is at fault here.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2019 9:06:23 GMT -5
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Post by ToddyJ on Sept 10, 2019 11:10:39 GMT -5
We all have our favorites on here. Serbia is clearly one of yours. There isn't anything wrong with that. I just don't like it when people on here over hype certain teams. There is no clear dominant team like Cuba in the 90's or Brazil on the men's side during the 00's. The game is growing and evolving. This is a good thing! My argument here is that not one team is a favorite and I think that any one of China, Brazil, Netherlands, USA, Italy, Turkey, Serbia....hell even Russia if they are playing at their highest level are capable of winning OG. Serbia will likely not break the top 5 at the World Cup with out a least some of the "A Team" present. This move might hurt them in the end. As the World cup is one of the three major tournaments in an Olympic quad....it should be respected and treated as such. Since Terzic and Serbia clearly don't care about it...then some other European team should have gotten a chance (Italy/Turkey). It looks bad when the #1 ranked team doesn't send it's A Team to a major tournament. Now the FIVB is partially to blame here as the order of tournaments this season is backwards. World Cup should have been first with 2 Olympic berths on the line AND crucial world ranking points. Then the Continental qualifiers should have happened around this time with the IOQT happening in January but that's another conversation for another thread. Where have I argued anything about Serbia's chances at Olympics? Or that they are the dominant team in today's volleyball? Please don't use straw-man arguments. While we are talking about favorites, Netherlands are actually my 2nd favorite team, after Serbia. Manon Flier and de Kruijf are among my top 5 favorite players of all time. I'm just realistic about their chances. They are what in English idiom would be called "poor man's Serbia" in that they have almost identical strengths (except that Dutch strengths are clearly weaker than Serbia's) and almost identical weaknesses (but more pronounced). The only true differences between 2 teams are that the Dutch have an elite defense specialist, which the other team doesn't, and that Serbia has a genius setter, which the other doesn't. As for how much Lonneke, Maret and Robin are important to them and their play, let's just say that, without them, this generation of Netherlands would be 2014-2018 Bulgaria 2.0, in that they would be a poorly constructed team of some 5-6 stars, whose style of play and strengths would be the opposite of complimentary, and their ceiling would be one 4th place in Eurovolley, and maybe a couple of Final 6 placements in VNL. Now, don't get me wrong, they could still surprise and achieve top 4 finish at World Cup (or repeat that at Tokyo, for that matter). After all, KYK's God mode notwithstanding , no one could have predicted Korea's 4th place in London 2012. It's just very unlikely. And I agree about your last paragraph, that should have been the way to do it. Except I think FIVB have only themselves to blame for clearly negatively impacting the importance of World Cup, no one else is at fault here. Let’s keep this between us via messages. Don’t want to clog up the thread 😊
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Post by alohavball on Sept 10, 2019 13:21:13 GMT -5
Netherlands Roster
S: Dijkema, Bongaerts OPP: Sloetjes OH: Balkestein-Grothues, Buijs, Plak, M. Jasper, Oude-Luttikhuis MB: Belien, Lohuis, Koolhaas, Timmerman L: Schoot, Knip
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Post by ironhammer on Sept 10, 2019 15:33:31 GMT -5
So I have been busy with work and family, did not paid attention to the World Cup until...now. Still, despite the fact that the World Cup is no longer an option for Olympic qualification for this edition, it is still a "big 3" tournament. So can anyone tell me just how many teams are sending their A squad to the tournament? Who are the favorites?
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Post by alohavball on Sept 10, 2019 15:49:42 GMT -5
So I have been busy with work and family, did not paid attention to the World Cup until...now. Still, despite the fact that the World Cup is no longer an option for Olympic qualification for this edition, it is still a "big 3" tournament. So can anyone tell me just how many teams are sending their A squad to the tournament? Who are the favorites? I would say USA and China are the favorites with Brazil and Russia right under, Japan on the otherhand could be a dark horse. Natalia and Tandara are with their clubs, but veterans Sheilla and Fabiana are back. Serbia just won the European Championship and their key players are skipping this tournament. Netherlands will be without De Krujif and Daalderop.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2019 10:14:40 GMT -5
Serbia Roster:
Head Coach: Aleksandar Vladisavljev
S: MIRKOVIĆ, ĐORĐEVIĆ OPP: BJELICA OH: BLAGOJEVIĆ, BUŠA, MILENKOVIĆ, LAZOVIĆ, LOZO MB: POPOVIĆ, ALEKSIĆ, MAJA SAVIĆ, JOVANA KOCIĆ L: PUŠIĆ, BOJANA GOČANIN
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