Tokyo, August 23, 2009

Following the last match of the 2009 World Grand Prix Final Round, here are my comments about the participating teams.

Below you can see the final standings with my personal opinion about the teams’ performances.



+ means that they played BETTER than I expected
= means that they played EXACTLY as I expected
- means that they played WORSE than I expected

Of course, if anyone disagrees with my opinion, please be so kind as to send your reasons by e-mail to (mailto Andrea Zorzi)



BRAZIL
BETTER than I expected

I have almost nothing to add to what I posted yesterday about the Brazilian team (READ HERE), only some brief notes:

- It isn’t easy replacing such a wonderful setter as Fofao, but Danielle Lins has started really nicely preserving the previous helpful peculiarities of Fofao while remodeling the distribution as much as necessary on herself.

-Two outstanding athletes, Paula and Jaqueline, are ready to rejoin the team.
Which begs the question: If Brazil won the 2009 WGP without them, how much more dominant would they be with them?

-Sheilla, Marì, Thaisa, Sassá, Fabi and Fabiana won the Olympic gold medal in Beijing but they still have the hunger to work hard every day and fight for each point. This makes Ze Roberto trustful and the other coaches worried.


RUSSIA
BETTER than I expected

I wrote a lot about Russia in the last few days and I confirm each positive comment. They are individually excellent players and they are improving their skills as a team too.
They are now rightly celebrating their deserved second place. But many of the Russian team members will be thinking about the fifth set in their first Final Round Match against Brazil and rue the big chance they wasted. They were leading 14-12 and failed to win the frame.

Russia is the most credible competitor of the dominating Brazilian team but they have to keep working hard to fix some weaknesses.

First: they must stay committed as long as necessary to improve their back-row abilities.

Second: they must make their distribution less predictable by exploiting the attack in the middle of the net. Every other top team hits more or less 25%-30% of the available balls with middle blockers, but the Russian team barely reaches 15%-20%.

Third: they must work hard to make their attack quicker even if they can rely on tallest players to kill the slow and high sets.

The next significant test in this process will be the European Championship, which will be played in Poland next September, where Russia will face a lot of tough teams.


NETHERLANDS
WORSE than I expected

Two years ago in Ningbo (CHN) the Dutch players overwhelmed all opponents. This year in Tokyo they underwhelmed.

After a straight-sets defeat to Russia in the last match, the so-called “flow” (when everything is going perfectly apparently without effort) that Flier said was the key to that wonderful victory in China is definitely gone.
Selinger’s athletes are still striving but the results aren’t as good as their efforts.

They play a developed Volleyball, exploiting their skills, but you cannot rely only on one excellent spiker if you aim to be a top world team. The Dutch girls block, dig and serve fine but in attack Flier is too overloaded. She is the only player who can kill the balls off the net and this is tough for her and makes the distribution much more predictable.

Chaïne Staelens could be the second attack terminal – as she had been in the past – but in the Final Round her performance was below average.
 
* I consider their performance during the Final Round worse than I expected but they played an excellent International Round. After four weeks of intense games they ran out of energy because they don’t have the players to replace the starting members.


CHINA
WORSE than I expected

The Chinese reporters attending the press conferences after the matches were always asking the players questions about the 2012 London Olympic Games. They probably didn’t adequately judge the bronze medal the team won at the Beijing Games. Their only concern seems to be on the possibility of regaining the gold medal.

On the other hand, Cai Bin, the Chinese coach, ceaselessly repeated that the athletes are young and they need time to improve.

As ever, the truth lies somewhere in the middle: it’s too early to focus on the next Olympic Games and even if this Chinese team is young, they played well below expectations.

Above all, they were unable to properly read the matches and adjust their game plan in accordance with their opponents’ features. The Chinese athletes always play the same: astonishing in defense but standard in blocking and attacking, relying only on individual performances. There no hints of any team strategy and, believe me, these athletes cannot aim to reach the highest spot on the podium without displaying a more modern game of Volleyball.


GERMANY
BETTER than I expected

Since the beginning of the WGP Final Round, the members of the German team rightly stated that qualification itself was a great achievement for them.
Therefore in Tokyo they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The first match was an encouraging victory over Japan and the day after they lost after a balanced fight that lasted five sets with the more experienced Netherlands. Until then their performance was technically fine and definitely excellent emotionally.

I understand and forgive them for the blackout they went through in the third match against the formidable Brazil, and better still I appreciated even more their willing approach the day after against Russia.
In that match, the Germans played brilliantly in defense but were nevertheless defeated 3-1 due to mistakes in the hot moments.

Actually, they wasted a good chance to overcome a stronger team and understandably, Guidetti, their coach, was very disappointed.

On the last day, the victory over China was the cherry on the cake for the young German team, which will gain a sense of sureness from this experience.

I feel they can’t be one of the top world teams because they lack the required physical strength and moreover Guidetti can count on only a few athletes. Anyhow, their performance in the 2009 WGP has to be considered a key step forward in what is surely a long journey ahead.


JAPAN
EXACTLY as I expected

Watching the Japanese Volleyball team playing brings to my mind a train that unfailingly always runs at the same speed. Like that peacefully chugging train, the oriental squad doesn’t care about its opponent’s characteristics, about the different circumstances and the players probably don’t recognize the crucial moments either.
Their emotional attitude (to tell the truth they always seem resolute to me) is unbound from the context.

I know that any kind of association between Oriental and Western behavior is tricky but we are merely talking about sporting approach and not about more complex lifestyles.

Each country has to find what model suits their own characteristics the best but when a team keeps on following the same method year after year without any attempt to change it seems more like stubbornness to me.

Japanese players mustn’t imitate Brazilians, even though Japan, many years ago, was a master in learning from techniques from abroad.
Nowadays the people in charge seem unable to understand how they can raise the level of Women’s Volleyball here.

Bye bye ande zorzi

In this post you find the video of the Press Conference Video after:

JPN-BRA 1-3 


*ONLY THE FIRST STATEMENT OF EACH PLAYER AND COACH IS TRANSLATED, THEN I LEFT SOME DECLARATIONS OF LINS, SHEILLA AND ZE ROBERTO IN PORTUGUESE, GIVEN THAT A LOT OF BRAZILIAN FANS ARE FOLLOWING THIS BLOG.


JPN-BRA 1-3
(21-25, 27-25, 19-25, 19-25)

Erika Araki
(JPN Captain)

Yoshie Takashita
(JPN Setter)

Maiko Kano
(JPN Spiker)

Masayoshi Manabe
(JPN Coach)

Dani Lins
(BRA Captain)

Sheilla
(BRA Captain)

Ze Roberto
(BRA Coach)

To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

In this post you find the video of the Press Conference after :

RUS-NED 3-1
(25-20, 25-23, 25-21)

I left their statements in the original language, followed –if necessary - by the English translation!

Manon Flier
(NED Captain)

Ingrid Visser
(NED Middle-blocker)

Avital Selinger
(NED Coach)

Marina Sheshenina
(RUS Captain)

Vladimir Kuzyutkin
(RUS Coach)

To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

In this post you find the video of the Press Conference after :

GER-CHN 0-0
(25-14, 23-25, 25-21, 25-14)

I left their statements in the original language, followed –if necessary - by the English translation!

Qiuyue Wei
(CHN Captain)

Yunwen Ma
(CHN Spiker)

Christiane Fürst
(GER Captain)

Margareta Kozuch
(GER Spiker)

Cai Bin
(CHN Coach)

Giovanni Guidetti
(GER Coach)


To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

Tokyo, August 22, 2009


Today the most exciting and balanced match should have been Netherland versus Brazil, but after the unpredictable defeat of the Dutch by Japan a day earlier, almost everybody foresaw a Brazilian victory.

As soon as the game started, we discovered that Flier and her teammates were back and their incomprehensible disappearance yesterday was only an accident.
Very soon it became clear we would be treated to a good match between two willing and resolute teams.

Ze Roberto, the Brazilian coach, can rely on many players who are capable of replacing the starting members and yesterday Sassà took the place of Natalia, stabilizing the reception.

What struck me was the smoothness and naturalness with which the Brazilian athletes always react to difficulties. They remain single-minded in avoiding wasting any energy and they continue to play smart even when the match becomes very tough.

I think that this positive attitude is a result of their individual skills, both technical and tactical, and above all on some good habits they have developed.


Allow me to use the definition of habit used in psychology:

activities that you do without thought that are less energy-consuming than others because you don't have to spend time motivating yourself to do them.

It goes without saying that in Volleyball good habits are fundamental and Brazil has a lot of good habits. They have a clear idea about how they want to play.

Brazil isn’t the best team in the world only because their distribution is quicker than other teams or because they block more efficiently (even though they do perform excellently in these fundamentals).

They are the best squad because they can play at fine level without expending too much energy. They have so many good habits that most of the time they naturally and seemingly effortlessly make the right choice.

I want to make this idea clearer with the following example:
I recently wrote that I like the effort that the Russian team is putting in to improve their defense.
During the first three matches they succeeded in this goal, but today in a tough match against Germany, they lost their focus and they slipped back to their old attitude. This happened because they still have to think about the process of improving their defense because the change isn’t already hardwired into the brain.
If they remain committed as long as necessary to bring about this goal, they’ll dig better to create more opportunities and spend much less energy doing so
.
Almost every team participating in the 2009 WGP Final Round aside from Brazil is facing the same challenge of identifying their biggest priorities and working to develop their performance levels.
They need commitment, consistency and, last but not least, a lot of time.
They cannot tackle more than one issue at a time or they will run a serious risk of overwhelming themselves.

This could be a big advantage for Brazil, which is far ahead in this process. It won’t be easy for the other teams to reach Brazil’s level because Ze Roberto can count on a host of well-developed players who every day do their best in order to earn their place on the team at the expense of the competition.

Today, not one member of the Brazilian team said anything about the almost certain 2009 WGP victory, probably because they never underestimate anyone, not even Japan, which has a slim chance of troubling the South American squad on the final day (and match) of the tournament Sunday.

Never say never, but only a miracle or a nightmare, depending on your nationality, will prevent Brazil from obtaining their foregone eighth WGP crown tomorrow.


Bye bye andrea zorzi

In this post you find the video of the Press Conference after :

JPN-CHN 0-3
(20-25, 23-25, 17-25)

I left their statements in the original language, followed –if necessary - by the English translation!


Qiuyue Wei
(CHN Captain)

Yimei Wang
(CHN Spiker)

Cai Bin
(CHN Coach)

Masayoshi Manabe
(JPN Coach)

To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

In this post you find the video of the Press Conference after :

BRA-NED 3-1
(25-22,18-25, 25-20, 25-16)

I left their statements in the original language, followed –if necessary - by the English translation!

Manon Flier
(NED Captain)

Marì
(BRA Spiker)

Dani Lins
(BRA Captain)

Avital Selinger
(NED Coach)

Ze Roberto
(BRA Coach)

To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

In this post you find the video of the Press Conference after :

RUS-GER 3-1
(16-25, 25-21, 25-23, 25-20)

I left their statements in the original language, followed –if necessary - by the English translation!

Christiane Fürst
(GER Captain)

Margareta Kozuch
(GER Spiker)

Marina Sheshenina
(RUS Captain)

Ekaterina Gamova
(RUS Spiker)

Giovanni Guidetti
(GER Coach)

Vladimir Kuzyutkin
(RUS Coach)

To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

In this post you find the video interview with:

Giovanni Guidetti
GER Coach



I asked the following questions:

1. Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself?
2. Please comment about your many experiences abroad.
3. What’ is your approach with the players?
4. Could you describe the World Volleyball level after the Beijing Olympic Games?
5. What could be the next crucial step in the Women’s Volleyball development?
6. Did you model yourself after any coach in particular?
7. How long will you coach?
8. What about your future and your family?
9. Have you any favorite city or country?


To watch the video click HERE or on the picture above

Bye bye andrea zorzi

Tokyo, August 21, 2009

One of the crucial skill - among many other talents - a great athlete must have to be a champions is deeming each point as the most important point.

This statement seems to be self-contradictory, given that some points are actually more important than others, but the right attitude on the court, is always striving to do the best.

Learning from the experience, a player can understand how to preserve his best energies for the crucial actions but this aim won’t be achieved only by reducing the rhythm.
It’s really dangerous and difficult to modulate the “inner emotional engine” which is a “on or off” device, therefore every athlete has always to keep on doing the best.

The coaches of women’s Volleyball teams are constantly concerned because women’s “inner emotional engine” is absolutely unpredictable.
The girls can suddenly, and apparently reasonless, change from enthusiasm to apathy.
In a blink of an eye, a clear victory can turn to be a defeat and vice versa.
This for fans and reporters is exciting, for the coaches is a nightmare instead.

Watching the third day matches from this perspective, I found some hints that confirm this peculiarity.

In the first match Russia was overwhelming China but in the ending phase of the first frame they were incomprehensibly waiting for the Chinese team's mistakes, rather than trying to exploit each opportunity to close the set.
Needless to say, the Russian dominance in attack and block was very clear. They were performing pretty well also in defense, which is the biggest aim of the Russian coach, but the players slowed down the rhythm giving an unexpected help to the opponent team, who caught up winning 29-27.

In the following sets, the two squads factual values went out and Russia dominated. Tatiana Kosheleva played fantastically killing 24 attacks on 36 attempts (unbelievable average) helped by Anna Makarova who scored 19 points. However the Kuzyutkin’s girls risked again in the fourth frame ended 25 23, wasting a big advantage because they played again sluggishly.


The second match was only a matter of time: in 71 minutes Brazil topped Germany, which gathered only 46 points in a one way match. After the match Guidetti said: “I always have the impression that my team fears Brazil and now I understand why. Many times Brazil kills us in this way because they play a very high quality volley.”

“Very high quality volley” means to play smartly technically, with many quick solutions, performing consistently in every fundamentals and, above all, without those dangerous mental breaks.

Ze Roberto was very glad after the victory but his look was still serious

(WATCH THE PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO AFTER THE MATCH)

because the 2009 WGP Final Round isn’t finished and keeping high the concentration of his team is essential.
The Brazilian squad is the best so far, but Ze Roberto, after many years in the Women’s Volleyball World, knows that in a blink of an eye everything could change.

Just after the press Conference talking with me he remembered how many times his team wasted great chances. Even after the Olympic Gold medal won in Beijing, he is still on his guard, may be more than ever.

The last game was the incontrovertible evidence that with women you never know what is going to happen next.

The Netherlands lost only one match in all the Preliminary Round, won the two previous games in the Final Round and yesterday’s match against Japan should have been a foregone victory.

At the very beginning, Flier and her team started scoring 5 points and Japan was still at zero.
Later, after many ups and downs, Japan achieved 7 points in a row reaching quickly 24-18. The first set seemed finished but Selinger’s team went back until 22, when a Sakashita smash closed the frame.

The Netherlands is the team who played steadily and passionately since many weeks, in 24 hours unpredictably disappeared and tomorrow could unpredictably reappear.

Being a women’s coach is a challenging job indeed .


Bye bye andrea zorzi