VolleyRuller96

Anything but Israel, please...

@heywoodu was that you in the chicken costume?
 

SuRie has declined another go with the song

And not because of the quality...

And I could only imagine how much more she will climb if allowed to perform again...
 

I want @Werloc singing instead of her

this girl defeated werloc in qualif 

The whole concept of giving "wild cards"  (or rather, selling a quota)  for the world/euro championship / champions league  is wrong in any sport  and should be immediately cancelled.

The whole concept of giving "wild cards"  (or rather, selling a quota)  for the world/euro championship / champions league  is wrong in any sport  and should be immediately cancelled.

Yesterday, during the volleyball friendly game between  and  
 

oh dear..what a idiots

It's in Ede? Cool  
 
That's not that far from here. Well not that anything is really far from here in a country of our size, but still. 

From heroes to zeros   or 9 seconds from the paradise to the hell....thats the titles from yesterdays big derby..
 
relive the highlights and the equalizing goal 9 seconds to go from the different emotions in Slovak and Czech TV
 

 

Alba Blaj in Champions League women final Can't believe this happenedWe beat Galatasaray

Most people probably know google trends service, where you can check the popularity index of almost any word,sentence et for almost each country or region.

As in many places, even here on Totallympics, there have been multiple "most popular sport" lists without basically any information on methodology or where their data comes from exactly, I figured out that using there would be probably not be a better way to test the popularity of sports than to check how many times people actually searched for informations about them, especially since now we can compare up to 5 results.

So I decided to try and compare the popularity of the 5 seemingly most wide-spread Team Sports (Football, Baskeball, Volleyball, Ice Hockey and Handball) and check out the results.

I have my doubts ( for example i can't understand why for some countries the poplularity score of 5-10 is shown, while some countries with bigger scores are not shown by default,) and the results  probably include those who just play the sports occassionally with friends and family without taking interest in the official competitions or stuff like "How to start playing XXX?" I think it still gives a pretty decent information about what sport is popular in each country, as the results are "produced" by ordinary people, not some unknown algorithm
 
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F02vx4,%2Fm%2F018w8,%2Fm%2F07_53,%2Fm%2F03tmr,%2Fm%2F03krj
 
Obviously I am only posting this as a curiosity,probably only the IOC  and the governing federations know what sports are popular and where they have the most fans  

Morocco cuts diplomatic ties with Iran

It's been a while since I last logged on  to Totallympics  - 2 weeks actually. I must apologize for leaving  the volleyball topics without updates and of course generally being not even logged in.
 
In those days I actually barely used the internet at all, as I was dealing with heavy personal struggles after my grandmother passed away due to leukemia 13.04
This was of course kind of expected, but still shocking and unbevielable for me, as she was a very close person to me. and still will be missed.

But well, life goes on... I took last few days to reflect and still am sad, but now I feel is slowly the time to return to usual activities.

Well,I'm back and better than before  You can again expect the home page to be spammed with volleyball posts 
 

Also sad news for @VolleyRuller96 and @rybak Poland is unfortunately relegated down to Div I B after the 1-6 lose to Kazakhstan

Quest for ticket to #EuroVolleyU20M Finals has started 
 
Luxembourg, April 26, 2018. The second round of qualifications for the 2018 CEV U20 Volleyball European Championship – Men started on Thursday with five matches across three pools. Hungary beat Estonia 3-1 in Anapa as Germany and hosts Romania were the winners of the matches contested in Ploiesti where they beat Austria (3-0) and Sweden (3-1), respectively. Portugal stormed to a 3-0 victory over Norway to start proceedings in Pool F in Zrenjanin. The eventual winners of the eight second-round qualifiers will book their ticket to the Finals scheduled for mid-July and due to take place in the Netherlands and Belgium. 

Pool B in Anapa (RUS) 

Estonia vs. Hungary 1-3 (19-25, 22-25, 25-18, 23-25) 

Estonia and Hungary opened the programme of the tournament in Anapa as both teams showed a great determination to win. Hungary claimed an 8-6 lead in the first set with spikes of Kristof Horvath and held on to their initial advantage at 13-10. Urmas Tali, head coach of Estonia, asked for a timeout. It was not very productive and Hungary continued to set the pace of the game until they sealed a 25-19 set win. The early stages of the second set were a close affair but Estonia missed several spikes to prompt another timeout by Tali. Albert Hurt helped them close in at 13-12 and Hungary coach Tibor Tomanoczy stopped the game. It was a close race but Hungary emerged victorious 25-22 with a point scored by Peter Fülöp. 

Hungary rushed to an 8-5 lead in the third set but Estonia drew level at 11-all with Devin Põlluste and eventually edged ahead at 16-12. The Hungarian team made too many unforced mistakes and their coach opted for several substitutions. However, Estonia moved the score to 22-17 in their favour and Tarvo Täht ended the set for Estonia 25-18. Hungary claimed a 10-6 advantage in the fourth set. Estonia closed in at 10-11 but after a timeout, Hungary edged ahead again for 16-13. After the second technical timeout, the two teams continued to trade points but Hungary attacked more effectively to secure a 3-1 victory. 



Tibor Tomanoczy, head coach of Hungary: “After winning two sets, we lost focus and concentration. Estonia, on the other hand, started to play better. We made some changes and we eventually won the game. We still have chances to go further in this competition.” 

Marton Szabo, team captain of Hungary: “We made too many mistakes and sometimes we lost concentration. We need to improve our block and reception.”

Urmas Tali, head coach of Estonia: “We made stupid mistakes, especially at the beginning of the match. We did not find our game today.” 

Madis Parrol, player of Estonia: “We had poor reception today and we did not show our real level. We need to improve our game.” 

Pool E in Ploiesti (ROU) 

Austria vs. Germany 0-3 (18-25, 10-25, 20-25)

Germany opened the programme of the tournament in Ploiesti by cruising to a comprehensive 3-0 win over their neighbours from Austria. This is an extremely important result for the young players of head coach Johan Verstappen who found in Lukas Pfretzschner their “man of the match” as this young talent recorded an impressive tally of 19 points. After easily claiming the first set, team captain Eric Burggräf and his team fought for 21 minutes in the second set against their Austrian opponent, before having the upper hand at 25-10 thanks to the contribution of their outside spikers. After that, Germany claimed also a relatively closely fought third set to secure their first victory in the competition.



Romania vs. Sweden 3-1 (25-23, 22-25, 25-21, 25-23)  

The second match of the day contested in Ploiesti between Romania and Sweden resulted in a 3-1 victory for the home team. Sweden started the match with a lot of confidence and they dictated the tempo of the game from start to the middle in the first set as the Romanian team, on the other hand, made too many mistakes. The hosts looked a little bit nervous and had some difficulties in reception but by putting more pressure with their serve and using more varied attack combinations, the home team eventually claimed the first set. 

Sweden started the second set by immediately imposing their tempo. They were better in reception and their setter made it hard for the Romanian blockers to find a way to stop Sweden’s attacks. The home team made many mistakes and this was enough for Sweden to win the second set.

The third set was just the opposite. The team of Romania showed a better game and the hosts looked a lot more concentrated and focussed. They continued to improve their level as the match progressed and showing more accuracy and efficiency in all aspects of the game, they imposed their rule in both sets 3 and 4 to secure a 3-1 victory.  

Pool F in Zrenjanin (SRB) 

Norway vs. Portugal 0-3 (17-25, 21-25, 23-25) 

In the opening match of the #EuroVolleyU20 qualifier in Zrenjanin, Portugal easily dealt with Norway, eventually claiming a 3-0 victory. The Portuguese boys were better the whole way and Norway was close, especially in the third set, but they lacked experience in the decisive moments.



“It is always difficult to play the first match at any tournament but we did what we wanted to do, as we booked an important victory,” said Nuno Miguel Pereira, head coach of Portugal.

“We did not follow the game plan in this match. I guess the boys were overwhelmed by the importance of the game. We needed to push through the middle more, to play tempo actions, and we did not succeed in doing that. Moreover, we had great problems in reception,” said Ole Martin Kleivenes, head coach of Norway.

Torun  will host the 2021 Indoor European Championship.

Well but thanks to this video , I just discovered how beautiful Slovakia anthem is  btw I (almost) understand the lyrics 
 

Yesterday USA defeated Russia in the U18 world championships quarterfinal, after the match, as you know in all ice hockey WCh programs, the winning team national anthem is always played (there no anthems before the match, only for the winner of the match after each game), but yesterday somehow the Russians made a crazy mistake playing part of Slovak anthem to the Americans to pay tribute for their win Reaction of the coach
 
 

I think that we have chances to stay in this division if Slovenia will lost tomorrow to Kazakhstan