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Vibo won yesterday ? Rome and Macerata won today ? This week-end was pretty good for me ;P

@champion: or maybe he's just using one thing called "irony" :P

Yeah...I was sure that my guys could win this final...they didn't. Serbia was too strong. WoW vatreni, you're becoming my official v-m hero by finding and posting all these old videos :)

HCLT: obrigada amigo, I really didn't remember this tournament at all!! But, you know, there were so many "irrelevant" tournaments/competitions all around the world those days...i'm afraid I've forgotten most of them :)

Poor Marco...guys I can assure you that Bracci was an excellent spiker. For those who don't know him, he's currently Barbolini's (Italy Women NT coach) assistant. You know...I don't remember this tournament at all!! "World Super Four"?? What was that??

@casamodena: I agree and I'll also add that I'm afraid Modena and Roma are sharing the very same problem this year.

@casamodena: another MB is not Modena's priority right now. You need someone else in another spot imho.

@raylight "For me Sabbi and Jarosz are the surprises of Serie A1 this year" Giulio and Jakub are imo the opposite sites of a coin: Sabbi was pretty good at the beginning of the season, providing promising performances and i thought this season in MRoma could mark a turning point in his career; then his performances started getting worse and he's currently alternating good things (as he showed in last match vs Trento) with awful things (as he did in the previous match). Jarosz, instead, after some initial problems (probably due to his adaptation to Italian League, new team, new coach, different kind of game, different kind of ball...and all the rest) has now found a balance that has allowed him to express himself at his best and play at a very high standard. @Kjeldhor "Roma played well last night, especially Sabbi" As regards Sabbi, i have already expressed my opinion...but i'm happy that he played well. As regards Rome, I've just finished writing about them in Regoular Season Discussion (so you can go and read my comment there). I'm happy that they played well...but, playing well one match every now and then (without being able to win besides) is not enough imo.

@Kjeldhor: i've seen from the set scores that they actually fought hard. Glad to hear that. Despite this, the negative aspect remains the same: as I wrote to Raylight some time ago (talking about Piacenza if i'm not wrong) even if you play very well and score tons of points but at the end of the day you always loose 3-0 or 3-1... you get no points at all and your standings position doesn't change or gets worse and worse...and Rome is currently in third last position!! They're standing with one foot in Serie A2 and the other one slowly shifting from A1 to A2 too.

@casamodena: what a pain reading your words mate! Modena is related to my sweetiest recollections of when I was a little girl and I was just starting to be interested and involved in this sport. Modena to me was, is and will always be "Panini Modena" and some names as Bertoli and Lucchetta, Travica sr. and Cantagalli come to my mind on the spot...it's part of our story (a significant part i'd say) and seeing this team having so many problems now makes me feel so sad.

Yesterday was another suffering day for me: Rome lost, Vibo lost ? and Macerata was about to loose as well (they were eventually able to grab a tie-break win, which is not much...but at least something is better than nothing).

Am I the only one here remembering Jan Posthuma and Andrea Gardini as huge blockers too??

I agree.

@vatreni: can you try finding the Final of this ECH edition, SWE-ITA, and post it here??

Henrique, su questo hai ragione però ad es. Russia e Brasile hanno avuto una continuità di rendimento ad altissimi livelli che invece a noi è mancata (malgrado il nostro sia, a detta di quasi tutti, il miglior campionato del mondo). Cmq non ho mai avuto la pretesa di voler essere "i migliori per tutto il tempo", mi sarebbe bastato avere qualcosa (non necessariamente l'oro o i titoli anche qualche secondo o terzo posto) tra quanto vinto dai "fenomeni" prima e il nulla assoluto di poi. Capisci cosa intendo?

@vatreni: you're right, but HCLT and I were talking about European Teams only (since the topic here refers to ECh).

Henry, perché il paragone non è buono?? Okay, altri tempi, altro tipo di pallavolo ma con le dovute proporzioni il paragone è utile imo.

Henrique, questa è la ragione per cui non riesco ad apprezzare molto la nostra attuale Nazionale. Il mio termine di paragone è sempre QUELLA generazione, QUELLA squadra, QUELLA mentalità. E quando paragono cosa eravamo a cosa siamo oggi...mi viene solo da piangere.

HCLT, I didn't refer only to those who actually won the gold but also to those NTs that got silver and bronze and, as far as I remember, from the ECh 1989 to 2007, the podium was always a matter of Russia, Italy, Netherlands and Jugoslavia (for example i remember ECH 1991 gold URSS, silver Italy, bronze The Netherlands; 1993 gold Italy, silver The Netherlands, bronze Russia; 1995 gold Italy, silver The NL, bronze Jugoslavia...and so on...i think on Wikipedia we can find the full list).

Sisley Treviso, if I'm not wrong.

Referring to this semi-final: the final for gold was SWE-ITA (and Italy won)...that was the beginning of the "Generazione dei Fenomeni" era.