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Post by ace35 on Mar 25, 2021 16:54:21 GMT -5
The perspective of some European teams as far as experience and playing time together is not quite what Americans are used to or can easily envision without explanation. These girls have played together for years. The older half of them practically grew up together and have been through thick and thin playing a not very profitable sport with barely any vacation year-long for at least a decade now. The number of official international matches played in the last 18 months plays a much smaller role than you would think. Sure, they are always important for helping to get into prime form at right time, but as far as re-familiarising themselves with each other, that's not even on the radar, as far as issues for teams like Serbia.
Avid also overestimates the difficulty with Busa and the concerns of her performance. Like Boskovic, she played a great first half of the season, only to be visibly derailed by irregularity of it all and covid (the fact that some much more important Fener players as far as offensive duties go have finally started to play well later in the season didn't help). I have no doubt she will struggle come NT prime time, but that will not be because she plays bad, but because of the enormity and difficulty of the task that will be placed before her.
Needless to say, Boskovic is not an issue. She hasn't had a single bad NT season in her whole career (6 summers and counting) and only under the most extreme pressures of covid and having to carry an unbelievably underperforming team year after year interrupted what was promising to become her best individual club season to date.
No, the real problem is Brankica and (ironically enough) the MB position, particularly Stefana. Veljkovic has been their 4th most important player for the 2017-2019 extremely prosperous period (after the holy trinity Maja-Tijana-Brankica), as well as arguably the best (at least in the top 3) MB in the world in 2019. The timing of her pregnancy is EXTREMELY unfortunate. Between it and covid-related issues, Serbia's last chances at gold may be doomed.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2021 19:07:50 GMT -5
I still hope Serbia medals and stays one of the top teams. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that skipping the VNL is going to hurt them in the long run. I just hope they are skipping it due to safety and caution for the athletes and not just because Terzić just doesn't want to participate. He has been vocal about his dislike for the schedule and the way the FIVB run things. I selfishly just love watching the best players play. Maja is a wizard and I wish the team well. I just want to see more of them, but I get that wear and tear is a real thing, especially when the depth of some smaller countries really isn't there. I think most of us are just bummed we wont get to see Serbia at all in the VNL. I guess I don't understand why they don't just send the B-C team again. That's some valuable experience. Hell, I wish Karch would do the same more than just the first year of the quad with the USA. I really like watching up and coming youth and some of the B team get some of the spotlight. I don't need the VNL to be the Olympics 2.0, but I would like to see all teams participate. I know this is an odd time with the pandemic. I'm not bashing, I just disappointed, like I'm sure many on here are too if they indeed don't attend.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2021 13:34:18 GMT -5
Besides China and Serbia, what other teams are considering skipping the tournament?
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Post by Reach on Mar 26, 2021 14:37:27 GMT -5
I still hope Serbia medals and stays one of the top teams. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that skipping the VNL is going to hurt them in the long run. I just hope they are skipping it due to safety and caution for the athletes and not just because Terzić just doesn't want to participate. He has been vocal about his dislike for the schedule and the way the FIVB run things. I selfishly just love watching the best players play. Maja is a wizard and I wish the team well. I just want to see more of them, but I get that wear and tear is a real thing, especially when the depth of some smaller countries really isn't there. I think most of us are just bummed we wont get to see Serbia at all in the VNL. I guess I don't understand why they don't just send the B-C team again. That's some valuable experience. Hell, I wish Karch would do the same more than just the first year of the quad with the USA. I really like watching up and coming youth and some of the B team get some of the spotlight. I don't need the VNL to be the Olympics 2.0, but I would like to see all teams participate. I know this is an odd time with the pandemic. I'm not bashing, I just disappointed, like I'm sure many on here are too if they indeed don't attend. Terzic doesn't care about the future of Serbian volleyball. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2021 15:34:25 GMT -5
A little wrench.... one of the 25 members into the bubble from each federation must include 1 person responsible for ensuring all players/staff are following the covid protocols.
There will be no injury replacements. No one can enter after the bubble has started.
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Post by alohavball on Mar 27, 2021 16:38:44 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2021 21:35:26 GMT -5
Do we know which teams are not attending? Have any of them confirmed their absence officially?
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Post by alohavball on Mar 27, 2021 21:58:52 GMT -5
Do we know which teams are not attending? Have any of them confirmed their absence officially? Not yet, but those teams could change their minds because of the penalties they may face. |
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Post by alohavball on Mar 27, 2021 22:01:24 GMT -5
On a positive note we might see national teams releasing their training rosters for VNL in the coming week, the Slovenian and Polish men's teams have already released theirs.
Edit: Iran also announced their men's wide roster.
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Post by ironhammer on Mar 27, 2021 22:27:06 GMT -5
Wait, is it confirmed China is not joining this VNL? I am not hearing any news confirmation on that.
Its a double-edged sword for teams skipping the VNL. On one hand, they may want to hide their strategies and keep it a secret from their Olympic competitors. On the other hand, teams do need warm-up matches to fine tune their performance, to identify weaknesses in their line-up and work out the kinks in their systems, and what better way to do it than the VNL? Russia skipped out on the World Grand Prix prior to Rio and their performance suffered badly at Rio after all...
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Post by alohavball on Mar 28, 2021 1:00:15 GMT -5
Wait, is it confirmed China is not joining this VNL? I am not hearing any news confirmation on that. Its a double-edged sword for teams skipping the VNL. On one hand, they may want to hide their strategies and keep it a secret from their Olympic competitors. On the other hand, teams do need warm-up matches to fine tune their performance, to identify weaknesses in their line-up and work out the kinks in their systems, and what better way to do it than the VNL? Russia skipped out on the World Grand Prix prior to Rio and their performance suffered badly at Rio after all... Nothing confirmed yet just rumors/speculation. With VNL being held in Italy will Lang Ping and China's main players actually make the trip to participate? It's hard to say seeing that they had the luxury of staying home most of the time and when they did have to travel (Week 1 of VNL 2019 Brazil hosted China) they sent a weak roster. This time around it's different. VNL is the only tournament before the Tokyo Olympics and the last international competition was the 2019 World Cup/VNL. I don't think Lang Ping is going to risk skipping VNL, she's smarter than that. Serbia is taking a big risk if the reason they pull out of the tournament is because they want to keep their strategies hidden and keep their players from being scouted (which doesn't make sense considering their starting lineup hasn't had serious changes). We already know Mihajlovic is bad at reception. If you ask me she's one of their players that really needs VNL, to warm up and get in the right head space against tough serving teams. Japan was another team that was starting to look like might pull out of VNL, but their head coach recently said that she will use the performances in VNL to round out their Olympic roster. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2021 3:13:50 GMT -5
Wait, is it confirmed China is not joining this VNL? I am not hearing any news confirmation on that. Its a double-edged sword for teams skipping the VNL. On one hand, they may want to hide their strategies and keep it a secret from their Olympic competitors. On the other hand, teams do need warm-up matches to fine tune their performance, to identify weaknesses in their line-up and work out the kinks in their systems, and what better way to do it than the VNL? Russia skipped out on the World Grand Prix prior to Rio and their performance suffered badly at Rio after all... Wait, Russia skipped out on the 2016 WGP but still managed to place 4th behind the Netherlands? They were even playing their olympic lineup most of the finals iirc. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2021 3:17:46 GMT -5
Wait, is it confirmed China is not joining this VNL? I am not hearing any news confirmation on that. Its a double-edged sword for teams skipping the VNL. On one hand, they may want to hide their strategies and keep it a secret from their Olympic competitors. On the other hand, teams do need warm-up matches to fine tune their performance, to identify weaknesses in their line-up and work out the kinks in their systems, and what better way to do it than the VNL? Russia skipped out on the World Grand Prix prior to Rio and their performance suffered badly at Rio after all... Nothing confirmed yet just rumors/speculation. With VNL being held in Italy will Lang Ping and China's main players actually make the trip to participate? It's hard to say seeing that they had the luxury of staying home most of the time and when they did have to travel (Week 1 of VNL 2019 Brazil hosted China) they sent a weak roster. This time around it's different. VNL is the only tournament before the Tokyo Olympics and the last international competition was the 2019 World Cup/VNL. I don't think Lang Ping is going to risk skipping VNL, she's smarter than that. Serbia is taking a big risk if the reason they pull out of the tournament is because they want to keep their strategies hidden and keep their players from being scouted (which doesn't make sense considering their starting lineup hasn't had serious changes). We already know Mihajlovic is bad at reception. If you ask me she's one of their players that really needs VNL, to warm up and get in the right head space against tough serving teams. Japan was another team that was starting to look like might pull out of VNL, but their head coach recently said that she will use the performances in VNL to round out their Olympic roster. I am really worried about Brazil. Covid is hitting them really hard again with another new variant. I hope their team is able to train after the pro season and stay Covid free until safely arriving in the VNL bubble. It wouldn't be the VNL/WGP without Brazil and USA giving it their all. Italy will want to win on home soil so we can expect quite a splash from them. Are they automatically in the Finals this time as hosts? It says top 4 teams make the finals. They should just do top 8 and then a single elimination olympic bracket. That would be sick. |
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Post by ironhammer on Mar 28, 2021 3:34:58 GMT -5
Wait, is it confirmed China is not joining this VNL? I am not hearing any news confirmation on that. Its a double-edged sword for teams skipping the VNL. On one hand, they may want to hide their strategies and keep it a secret from their Olympic competitors. On the other hand, teams do need warm-up matches to fine tune their performance, to identify weaknesses in their line-up and work out the kinks in their systems, and what better way to do it than the VNL? Russia skipped out on the World Grand Prix prior to Rio and their performance suffered badly at Rio after all... Wait, Russia skipped out on the 2016 WGP but still managed to place 4th behind the Netherlands? They were even playing their olympic lineup most of the finals iirc. Remember that Rio match when Serbia absolutely destroyed Russia? In any case, 4th place would be a disappointment, Russia always try to aim for a medal spot. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2021 15:13:00 GMT -5
Wait, Russia skipped out on the 2016 WGP but still managed to place 4th behind the Netherlands? They were even playing their olympic lineup most of the finals iirc. Remember that Rio match when Serbia absolutely destroyed Russia? In any case, 4th place would be a disappointment, Russia always try to aim for a medal spot. The reason Russia was bad in 2016 was because Startseva was left off the roster and was replaced by Pankova. This happened literally between the WGP finals and the start of the OG. If you have a team that runs a two player passing system and is STILL bad at ball control, you need a setter who is physical enough to put up hittable moon balls the Russian's are used to. Russia's coach Yuri Marichev was a joke. |
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