Observations from Katovice (very long)
Are Akselsen
Poland.
The tournament was very professionally run, and the polish spectators
very loud. There were 5000-12000 spectators at every match.
The tournament was a triumph for rally point scoring, with lots of close
sets and matches. Of the 16 matches 6 ended 3-2, 7 ended 3-1 and only
three ended 3-0.
For those who say that once you fall behind in RPS you can’t catch up I
can only say that it isn’t so. Over and over again the lead changed, and
5 point leads were equalized all the time.
I also noticed that the defensive skills are getting better and better,
leading to more spectacular rallies – very entertaining. I’m a bit
unsure of how close the teams are to peak performance as there was an
unusual number of unforced errors.
The teams were very close the first two days, but some showed signs of
fatigue the third day.
A summing up of the teams:
The polish team was, together with Holland, the weakest team of the
tournament. They lack a little bit of everything to make it to the top,
although the setter Andrej Stelmach played a lot better than I would
have expected from seeing him in club games in Italy. The usually
preferred setter, Pavel Zagumny, wasn’t there at all – injured? Both
middle players (Stanchelewski and Prus) were decent. At the outside both
David Murek (who appeared to have a knee injury) and especially Piotr
Gruzka had passing problems. The opposites Papke and Prygel were
inconsistent, though playing well in periods.
Holland may have filled the setting void left by Blangè. Young Nico
Freriks played extremely well in the first match against Cuba, and
though he showed some lack of consistency in the later matches he should
have a bright future. Most of the attacking was done by Schuil and
Nummerdoor, and they played very well. Schuil had a tendency to fall off
during the sets and the match, usually finishing poorly. The other OH de
Gruyter is not at this level and was primarily used as a passer. Sander
Olsthorn did a good job in the middle, while Mike van de Goor isn’t
quite there yet. The libero Joost Koistra isn’t good enough. With Bas
van de Goor and Guido Goertzen they could be a medal contender in the
European Championship. They should find a way to settle the differences
with Marko Klok too.
France used Chambertin as setter. He played very well, but chose to set
Antiga on several crucial points, some times even in position six. This
is incomprehensible as Antiga was absolutely unable to terminate. His
swing is close to nonexistant, and though he passes extremely well I
cannot see how France can afford to use him. I would go with Luc
Marquet.
Franz Granvorka on the other outside position has big passing problems,
and sometimes mistimes his approach. When he is good he is very
impressive. The best player in the team is Laurent Capet. He is one of
the best opposites I have seen. Very good at hitting sets that are not
ideal, and he serves well. Henno also played well at libero.
Daquin is one of the best middle attackers and is quick to the outsides
when blocking. Monneraye is a bit to slow, and made too many attacking
errors. But he is young and will improve.
Cuba was very impressive in the beginning, and then they totally fell
apart. Leonell Marshall has the biggest vertical I have ever seen. He
can easily hit over the block. However, his timing is shaky, and his
armswing not always effective, he was replaced by Aldazabal who did a
decent job. The outside, Angel Dennis, is the best outside in the world
despite his height. He passes well, serves well and hits well from four
positions (4,2,1 and 6), he is the teams “go to guy”. He also possesses
a variety of attacking techniques. The best blocker in the world is
Pavel Pimienta. In one match he had 9 blocks! Ihosvany Hernandez should
get his hands on more balls in blocking. Both middles are hampered by
poor sets.
Raul Diago set the first match, but Alain Roca set the last two. Roca
has played outside hitter and libero earlier. His backsets are sweet,
but he had problems connecting with the middles. His biggest problem,
though, is that he is too slow getting under the ball. Several times he
had to bump set where a quicker setter could hand set.
Ramon Gato played the other OH. He didn’t get many sets, but passed
well.
Jugoslavia were lucky to get to the semifinals with only one win against
Poland. They played very uninspired. Especially Geric and Vujevic were
below par. Miljkovic won a lot of balls, but he also made lots of
errors. Nikola Grbic started setting, but he apparently has a knee
problem, so Raiko Jokanovic set the last matches. They both played quite
well. Actually it was Slobodan Boskan who carried the team and together
with Vusurovic he was the only one who seemed to want to win. I don’t
know why Vasa Mijic didn’t play libero, but they should bring him back,
Skoric isn’t in his class.
Mester and Vusurovic played the other middle, but the former neither hit
nor blocked well.
The russians were the team that varied most, from great to dismal. Ilja
Saveliev started most of the matches, but would always be pulled quite
fast. I considered him the best outside in the world a year ago, but now
he plays completely without self confidence and could do nothing right.
Tetioukine usually replaced him and did well. I don’t know if he is
quite well from the injuries he got in the car crash after the olympics
– I can see no other reason for him not to play more. Cholupov were not
quite his old self either. He missed a large part of the season in
Italy, so maybe his conditioning is weak? Jakovlev and Guerassimov
switched as opposite. The latter played better than I have seen before,
but have problems when he needs to improvise. Mitkov is still among the
better liberos, but had problems passing the jumpserves from the cubans
and brazilians. Ouchakov played all the matches as setter except the
bronzefinal, where Arkipov replaced him. I am quite sure Arkipov will be
in the starting line up very soon. He is 190 cm and jumps very well,
hits the second ball hard with his left and jump serves with speeds over
120 km/h with his right! He of course sets well too – better than
Ouchakov from what we got to see. He is only 20 years – a very exiting
player.
In the middle Kazakov ought to block more balls with his 217 cm. The new
middle, Egortchev, played OK, but not outstanding.
It’s incredible that the italians made it to the finals, but once they
got there the lights went out. They were butchered by the brasilians.
The stabilisator in the team is Bernardi, and his performance against
Cuba was stellar. Casoli started in the other OH spot, then Rosalba took
over for a while before Casoli came back. Rosalba was a bit
disappointing, he played far below his level last year.
Both middles, Mastrangelo and Fei, struggled in periods, and I would
like to have seen Tencati play, however he was only subbed to block for
the setter. Vermiglio did a decent job as setter, but my guess is that
Meoni will be back for the EC in september. His serves are better than
Meonis, but overall I think Meoni is the better of the two.
Another disappointment was Alberto Cisolla. He looked as if he forgot
his self confidence in Italy. You could easily see that he didn’t
believe he could put the ball down, and he was right. He was replaced by
Leondino Giombini who was a minor success. He hits the ball very high
and either over the block or via the block. Sometimes the block slowed
the ball down, but he made very few mistakes.
One of the problems Italy had was serving. Each time they tried to
increase the serve pressure it ended in missed serves.
Brasil was clearly the best team of the tournament. Only in the
semifinal against Russia did they struggle, but they could easily have
won the match 3-0 or 3-1. The passing was the best of all the teams, and
this made it possible for Maurizio Lima to dish out nectar sets left,
right and centre. Giba struggled the first match against Poland, but
afterwards he was very impressive, especially when hitting across the
breast down the line. Nalbert Bitencourt was steady, playing on a very
high level all the time. The new opposite Andre Nasciamento was the most
effective hitter in the tournament, but unlike most of the other
opposites he wasn’t the one who was fed all the crisis balls. Brazil was
the team that used the middles most, and Henrique was totally
unstoppable. Gustavo Endres is the second best blocker in the world. The
new Libero, Sergio, both passed well and dug lots of balls.
The bench is good too. Dante, Giovane, Andre Heller, Ricardo and
Andersson all got playing time and did well.
I like the fact that the best starting six only average 195 cm!
My all star team: Maurizio Lima, Andre Nasciamento, Pavel Pimienta,
Gustavo Endres, Nalbert Bitencourt, Angel Dennis Diaz and Sergio.
Are Akselsen
- Fatigued after watching 16 matches (61 sets).
Steven
some of the negativity this newsgroup tends to get bogged down with.
Steven
Gold Coast, Australia
Victor Lindal
sb...@REMOVEwinshop.com.au wrote on 4/7/01 3:10 am:
Glad you said this.
The article was truly a great contribution to the sport and to this news
group.
