2015 Women's World Ch. (DEN) - Semifinals

[eduardsson]

1. Holland vs Poland
2. Norway vs Romania


Your bets?

[eduardsson]

Come on, Romania! Come on, Poland! let's do it until the very end. Let's play the final together

[amc015]

Holland-Romania

[jensm]

Holland - Norway in the final
Holland the only team who haven't lost a match

And nr 3 in group B (Poland)'moved to semis, and aswell nr 4 from group D. (Romania)

[eduardsson]

One interesting fact:


Group B, which was considered the easiest, gives 2 semifinalists, of which one will be playing the final.

Group D, on the other hand, considered unanimously ''the toughest'' gives 2 semifinalists and implicitly one finalist.

[kleber]

Final Holland-Norway

[fmj]

The Netherlands - Norway.

Crazy Wch, but as some said before, there is ALWAYS suprises!

[karel]

I would also like to see Poland-Romania final - it would be nice from my perspective. But i think it will be... Romania-Holland.
Dutch girls crushed us in the group phase, so they have a big psychological advantage and generally are considered to be a better team. But on the other hand it is sometimes very difficult to repeat such a good performance against the same opponent.
I remember 2007 volleyball ECh... We beat Serbia in group phase without any problems (3:0), than we faced them in the semis, many people thought we should win again, cause we were said to have a better team and Polish team was defending its European title. However, we lost 3:0... So... We will see...

One more thing: Poland is the only team, which has repeated its place in the semifinal from 2013 WCh. Brazil, Denmark and Serbia were eliminated.

[Hajas]

If Romania is gonna beat Norway Ungureanu needs to play her best game ever

[Divi]

Wow, we did it. We are in the semi finals, a historical achievement for the Dutch team What a great game yesterday with a spectacular Tess Wester in goal, who saved 21 shots (48% saves) and Estavana Polman scoring 5/5 from 7m in the second half (10 goals total). For anyone who is interested in seeing the highlights, you can check them here: http://www.ziggosporttotaal.nl/video/18 ... ndbal.html. Especially the crucial save from Wester at 25-24 is worth watching.

Now we play Poland again, who the team beat 31-20 in the group phase. This will make it a strange game, especially after the great performance by Poland against Hungary and Russia. For sure we are the favourites to win this game considering the one we played in the group phase, but it is still the semi finals and I expect a hard match. The media attention is starting to increase here, which is great news for this beautiful sport in a county which is dominated by football, ice skating and field hockey.

[Scheersberg]

Dutch girls crushed us in the group phase, so they have a big psychological advantage and generally are considered to be a better team. But on the other hand it is sometimes very difficult to repeat such a good performance against the same opponent.

Holland most certainly has a very (relatively young) talented team. Do not forget girls like Wester, Abbingh, Malestein and Polman were already part of the team that took place 2 in the EC U19 2011. Final against Denmark, -2.
If you look at the results in the group phase than it 's hard to imagine that Poland will beat Holland. But I also could not imagine Poland would beat Hungary and Russia but they did!

Holland favorite, yes I think so but when it will be a close "fighting game" I am not that sure. Semi final is already a historical achievement for Holland where Handball is a small sport. We do not have a real tradition in Handball. It al started more seriously end 90. Key for suc6 is the Handball Academy founded 2006.

As for the Norway Romania game I think Norway because Romania depends to much on one (great) player. Although I must admit I found team Norway less impressive as I thought them to be. Nevertheless Norway is still my tournament favorite.

WC2 would for Holland almost certainly mean qualification for Rio. WC2 and WC7 implies a group with Japan and Tunisia. There will be a battle for WC7 (or WC8) depending on the Norway result!
Problem is only after the final you know what WC7/8 is worth.

Final prediction: Norway Holland

And the winner is ... .

The media attention is starting to increase here, which is great news for this beautiful sport in a county which is dominated by football, ice skating and field hockey.

I fully agree, you could ad cycling also to the favorite sports. Let us not discuss here Dutch Football , 2016 we are looking forward to Rio and Tour de France and forget about someting else happening in France.

[John]

The best thing about the Dutch team is that the girls are young and we will watch them for many years..
Before the WCh started i said these girls were not going to make it without a good defense and goalkeeper. And they played good in defense and Tess Wester has been very good. I hope she stays that like that and that it's not just a one time thing.
Also i have to say that they play more mature, because on previous championships they played too fast, got tired really quickly of running too much, they run, pass the ball to one of the backs and they shoot from 9-10m . Now they play more calm, and they play more with the pivot.
I would really like them to win this WCh because they are a team that progressed the most in the past couple of years, showed that they growed and they deserve a reward for their hard work. And also because they are pretty haha

[Joana]

They used to have such great profiles in the past. Assink, Mulder, Burgers and van der Wissel were the bomb! Too bad the rest of the team wasn't up to par and those big players were often injured and could rarely get together for the major tournaments, so they never achieved much.
This generation can certainly make up for it.

[karel]

The media attention is starting to increase here, which is great news for this beautiful sport in a county which is dominated by football, ice skating and field hockey.

How about volleyball? Yo have big traditions in this sport too. Your male team is just average right now (although it was extremely strong in the past), but your girls are good again.

[Scheersberg]

Holland is now indeed playing more mature with a much beter defense and an excellent GK, also not to forget Broch at pivot position. Offensive power and speed never was the problem. Problem maybe to much speed and running.

Now coach Groener has for every position more than one option. In the "Assink" period the basis was just to small. Some young Dutch girls age 18-20 play now in the Bundesliga, they all can play within 1-2 years for the Dutch team. Kelly Vollebregt TUS Metzingen is a good example, Jasmina Jankovic same club is a good back-up for Wester.

Dutch Volleybal association has 150.000 members, Handball 50.000. Men volleyball we were not bad in the nineties but currently no more than average. Women not that bad, silver last EC.
There is and was always much more media coverage for volleyball than Handball. Let 's hope This WC will give a boost for Handbal!

Men handball still has a long way to go. There competing in a EC or WC already would be a big achievement for Holland. You see some positive developments, men handbal academy, oci Lions EHF cup.

[Joana]

There is and was always much more media coverage for volleyball than Handball. Let 's hope This WC will give a boost for Handbal!

Let's hope so indeed, I don't want their volleyball team to get any stronger.

[Marco Aurelio]

The media attention is starting to increase here, which is great news for this beautiful sport in a county which is dominated by football, ice skating and field hockey.

How about volleyball? Yo have big traditions in this sport too. Your male team is just average right now (although it was extremely strong in the past), but your girls are good again.

My favorite Dutch volley teams were the ones at the 92 Olympics (Zwerver, Blange, Posthuma, Held, etc, Boersma, Crielaard, Weersing, Brinkman, etc.). They were magnificent back then.

[Joana]

I'm sure their current volleyball team can go on to achieve great things. They're quite young and have so much potential. What they do miss is a great setter. On the other hand, I don't see any great setters in European volleyball once Maja Ognjenović is gone.

[Danie]

I would also like to see Poland-Romania final - it would be nice from my perspective. But i think it will be... Romania-Holland.

May God hear & fulfill your call. Nevertheless I have to admit that a Netherlands v Norway final seems to be the right call.

[Danie]

If Romania is gonna beat Norway Ungureanu needs to play her best game ever

Her... and the rest of the team as well. However that still looks like a bridge too far.

[SilentOne]

I watched only one game of Holland so far and can say the following - congrats to the new World champions. Poland can be happy to be here, great tournament for them but they are no match for Holland's game

Norway I expect to play final not because they are better than Romania, but because of their routine in playing those big games, especially in front of their home crowd. But their game is not as impressing as the Dutch, so as I said congrats to the new world champions

[Mr. 007]

1. Holland vs Poland +5 -Poland played well, but it was basically Russia that played their worst game so far, with Trefilov going madman. Still, there should have been extra time with Russia missing a penalty at the last attack, so Poland got away with it pretty lucky. Won't help them when meeting this WC biggest surprise, and burning hot team of Netherlands

2. Norway vs Romania +1 -Neagu scored 15 goals, but that won't happen again in this match. She will be taken care of, but on the other hand we don't have many players to take on such a task...thanks a lot Hergeirsson.
Alstad just sitting there and watching the girls play...k**f...I get sick every time I think of it. 3 pivots!!!! We don't even know the third pivots name, haven't seen her play at all...k**f k**f k**f.

Romania playing much better now with more confidence, but luckily so are also Norway, and thank God for that. Nah, Neagu have NEVER beaten Norway even once, so no reason to change that

[barry.romania]

I just hope it`s a premotion. let`s see if we can do it again! I might be wrong, but Norway didn`t look that good against Montenegro.

[Marco Aurelio]

I just hope it`s a premotion. let`s see if we can do it again! I might be wrong, but Norway didn`t look that good against Montenegro.

Teams don't look good against MNE very often.

[Mixball]

Not to forget Danick Snelder- 20/20 impressive I like their both pivots, but besides Malestein the wings lack a little imo.
Smeets out with an injury was not good, but their backplayers and Wester may compensate for that.