Women's Volleyball CEV European Championship 2023

[hckošice 16,582]

3-1 win over Host meaning our girls will be officially ranked 3rd in the group.

[Makedonas 2,262]

Tough loss for us 2-3 against the United Nations All-Star team aka "Azerbaijan" 

 

We had leads (6-2, 11-10) in the 5th set but lost it 12-15 

 

We need a miracle now to advance, it's too bad, we will be lucky to win a set against Turkey...

 

Our girls fought hard though and we will have many chances in the future. Our oldest player is 30 yo and our best player is 19 yo, so we will be back 

(and hopefully with Vasilantonaki back in the team because we currently only have two "elite" players and she would be the third and make a big improvement to our squad)

[CCB 622]

Netherlands is playing against   right now. One of our best players, Nova Marring, injured her ankle. Looks like her European Championships and Olympic qualifier is over . A big problem for our team, as we don't have many good attackers left.

[Federer91 3,375]

The clunky play we have done all tournament has finally caught up. Unbelievable how Switzerland of all nations is dominating us.. at volleyball..  better be pulling for us to get 2 sets, because they won't get a better opportunity for a 1/4 

[hckošice 16,582]

1 hour ago, Federer91 said:

The clunky play we have done all tournament has finally caught up. Unbelievable how Switzerland of all nations is dominating us.. at volleyball..  better be pulling for us to get 2 sets, because they won't get a better opportunity for a 1/4 

So, Congrats for the Quarterfinals then

[Federer91 3,375]

Things finally clicked in sets 3 and 4.  Now if this play can be sustained for a longer period i will be a happy camper!

 

The illustrious 1/8  vs.  is now set. There is going to be action on sunday night 

[Makedonas 2,262]

21 hours ago, Makedonas said:

We need a miracle now to advance, it's too bad, we will be lucky to win a set against Turkey...

Well we lost 0-3 but we did quite well. We lost the first set 24-26, second set wasn't so close (16-25), and then in the third set we really battled (without Anthouli for most of it) but lost 26-28 after having two set points.

 

It was nice to see some other girls step up today and I am really optimistic about the future of this team. Let's not forget (how can we when I keep mentioning it ) that we were at this tournament without arguably our best player Vasilantonaki.

 

Also I am proud of our team for fighting and being authentic, unlike the United Nations All-Star team of Azerbaijan which we faced yesterday, or Turkey today with the Cuban mercenary Vargas as their best player...I would rather lose this way than win with fake naturalized players, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks this.

 

Lastly the live comments feed on European Volleyball today was absolutely disgusting, these things should be monitored, it was even worse than the FIBA ones. The amount of Turks making "swimming" jokes about how their ancestors killed Greeks in the sea 100 years ago was extremely disgusting, and quite shocking to be honest that so many people still think this way in 2023...

Edited August 24, 2023 by Makedonas

[LDOG 2,477]

1 hour ago, Makedonas said:

Well we lost 0-3 but we did quite well. We lost the first set 24-26, second set wasn't so close (16-25), and then in the third set we really battled (without Anthouli for most of it) but lost 26-28 after having two set points.

 

It was nice to see some other girls step up today and I am really optimistic about the future of this team. Let's not forget (how can we when I keep mentioning it ) that we were at this tournament without arguably our best player Vasilantonaki.

 

Also I am proud of our team for fighting and being authentic, unlike the United Nations All-Star team of Azerbaijan which we faced yesterday, or Turkey today with the Cuban mercenary Vargas as their best player...I would rather lose this way than win with fake naturalized players, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks this.

 

Lastly the live comments feed on European Volleyball today was absolutely disgusting, these things should be monitored, it was even worse than the FIBA ones. The amount of Turks making "swimming" jokes about how their ancestors killed Greeks in the sea 100 years ago was extremely disgusting, and quite shocking to be honest that so many people still think this way in 2023...

I believe the player you mention is into some dispute with the federation? In principle it won't be easy to bring her back. 

[Makedonas 2,262]

10 hours ago, LDOG said:

I believe the player you mention is into some dispute with the federation? In principle it won't be easy to bring her back. 

I'm not 100% sure. She wasn't with the national team from 2022, but they called her up for this tournament and she didn't play.

[CCB 622]

First round matches:

 

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Don't know what happened exactly, but Italy, Netherlands and Serbia should easily qualify for the semis. Meanwhile 4 top countries Turkey, Belgium, Germany and Poland will fight for the last spot. Very unbalanced draw.

 

From Dutch point of view: nice that we have an easy route (although Bulgaria has a chance to win against us), but we played awful in the qualifying round. So we not really deserve to be in the Final Four, we just had a lucky draw. I watched matches from Poland and Belgium this week, they play on a better level at the moment. 

 

Big surprise of the qualifying round was the level of Ukraïne, Czech Republic and France. The first two are capable of some surprises at he OG qualifier in september.