Inauguriamo oggi una nuova rubrica: dalla Turchia, Murat ci guiderà dentro il campionato femminile. Visti i numerosi utenti esteri, lasceremo gli articoli in inglese. A tutti voi utenti italiani, un pò di pazienza nel tradurre…Ma credete, ne vale la pena! Buona lettuta! Good Reading!
First of all, I would like to indicate that it will be an honor for me to write for Vivovolley, to contribute to the widespread passion of volleyball by helping each and every volleyball fan to follow the protagonists on the court by the news we provide. As of today, I will weekly appear here to convey news about the Turkish League. For the past few years, particularly Turkish Women’s Volleyball League has started to draw significant deal of attention by worldwide press thanks to the foreign stars the league has been hosting, ever-increasing degree of success in big European tournaments at the club level and finally the recent rejuvenation of Turkish National team in worldwide arena.
This season the level of interest in Turkish League by international volleyball community is undoubtedly at one of its greatest times, if not at its peak. Although the performances of club teams are displayed less than what it is expected to be due to the tight schedule with the recent World Championship, Turkish Women’s volleyball clubs have already been competing in the Turkish League and CEV Indesit Champions League for two weeks.
The first two weeks in the Turkish League were marked with no particular surprises as every powerhouse was able to gain the upper hand at the end of each match. As is the center of attention by most of the volleyball fans everywhere, a star-studded Fenerbahçe Acıbadem’s performance on the court was at the curiosity of every single audience. The likes of Fenerbahçe were tested by Galatasaray Medical Park in the first week of Turkish League. The injury of Serbian star Ivana Djerisilo was thought to be adversely affecting Galatasaray and it so happened. Although the maestro of Arzu Göllü, the veteran Turkish setter, was able to diversify each and every set, the attacking power of Puerto Rican Karina Ocasio, once Brazilian national team player Erika Coimbra, the Serbian middle blocker Vesna Djurisic was not a match for Fenerbahçe and the team in yellow blue jerseys won in straight sets. The biggest point everyone was wondering about Fenerbahçe was how Ze Roberto would resolve the 3-foreigner quota in Turkish League while he would have to send 2 world-class players off to the stands just to watch the game. An important critique to Fenerbahçe originated in last year was their back line of defense with major problems observed with libero Nihan Yeldan particularly in reception. By looking at her first few games, it is obvious that Yeldan will experience the same trouble this season as well. Therefore Ze Roberto will probably want to strengthen his reception line-up as much as he can with Osmokrovic and Sokolova particularly in tough Turkish League games. However, the Brazilian coach’s plans seemed to have been in disarray due to recent injury of Crotian life saver Osmokrovic who is expected to be sidelined till the World Club Championships. His immediate public complaints about Seda Tokatlıoğlu’s receiving abilities following the Champions League game against Bergamo is openly an indicator of his distrust in his libero’s reception skills and Tokatlıoğlu as an outside hitter. Osmokrovic’s injury seems to have further blurred Ze Roberto’s mind that he went into further new researches at the back line in their last game against a highly weak team, Beşiktaş. He tested the middle blocker captain Çiğdem Can Rasna as an outside hitter alongside Seda Tokatlıoğlu while choosing Fofao, Christiane Fürst and Kasia Skowronska as his foreigner line-up. Rasna is neither foreign to reception nor to the outside hitter position but I believe the coach’s decision should be evaluated as an effort to find solution to their wide open reception crisis which seems to remain as an open wound till Osmokrovic comes back in full power. Fenerbahçe expectedly stormed past Beşiktaş in straight sets but the future tougher games in Turkey and Europe remain as a question mark for one of the strongest contenders of Turkish League.
Another tough contender for the Turkish and European Champions League titles is definitely Eczacıbaşı Vitra. With the new additions of Antonella Del Core, Heather Bown, Yevgeniya Dushkyevich and Neslihan Darnel alongside Cuban-born Italian star Mirka Francia Vasconcelos, the team in orange-white jerseys is praised by most of the volleyball community as the team with the highest expectation of a finest harmony. Italian coach Lorenzo Micelli’s team first week dropped a set against Nilüfer Belediyesi and easily passed the Ankaragücü team in straight sets in the second week of Turkish League. The first few weeks look to be test and trial times for the Italian coach as he mostly concentrated his starting six line-ups in B-team young players but still passing each league test easily so far. In his press conferences, Micelli always emphasizes that he wants to ensure that all of his team members are ready in the face of a challenge and that each player returning from the World Championship is back with full force after a physically and mentally drilling tournament. When all players resume the court with full performance, Eczacıbaşı promises to be the fiercest competitor for all titles.
As Eczacıbaşı, another team coming from a strong volleyball tradition in Turkey is Vakıfbank Güneş Sigorta Türk Telekom, who last year earned the name sponsorship former volleyball team Türk Telekom. Vakıfbank started the season with an upset in the Turkish Super Cup by Fenerbahçe as they also looked rusty in a tight five setter win against the young Serbian team Crvena Zvezda Beograd. However, they easily squeezed in with 2 straight-set wins against two inexperienced and young teams, namely Dicle Üniversitesi and Ted Kolejliler. The big gaps among the teams in Turkey, which has been brought to spotlight many times by the Italian born coach Giovanni Guidetti, have been eliminating the ferocity of competition in the Turkish League. Although it is apparent that Vakıfbank is out of form, they can easily clinch straight-set wins against all the Turkish teams except for the big three or four teams. The difference between the levels of play demonstrated by Fenerbahçe, Eczacıbaşı, Vakıfbank and also Galatasaray is notably higher than the rest. Therefore only the games among these four teams promise to be a real blockbuster and are cut out to bring unexpected results. Guidetti has been the center of attention in Turkey for the past two seasons when he explained how they only get to have competitive games in the Champions League and against the three other teams in Turkey and that this reduces their level of readiness for matches of high quality when playing against good teams. Unfortunately, this seems to continue to be quite a problem for Turkish Women’s Volleyball this season as well.
We will have to wait and see what Turkish League evolves into with star-granted rosters vis-à -vis the teams with much less budgets than the top teams. Especially Turkish Women’s League is certain to bring quality games in the future and the expectations of trophies in the international arena are higher than ever.
I will be back next week to deliver the most up-to-date news from the Turkish League.
Murat N. Colakoglu
