Staff 
Turkish Women’s League is still far from big upsets, unexpected results, and full house games. Blockbuster matches do not live up to the expectations while teams are still in the process of patching coordination and cooperation as most teams reinvented themselves. The fatigue from the World Championships is still in place and teams are out of shape. But the good side of the coin promises us an improving volleyball league as new players adapt to their teams and competition gets fiercer. Plus, the picture one has for club teams is almost the same in every country following an intense period of national team camps. Thus one should not write off the quality level of Turkish Women’s League just yet because it can only get better. Yet, there are still some highlights and lowlights I believe needs to be mentioned.
The most promising game of the week was Galatasaray Medical Park versus Vakifbank Gunes Sigorta Turk Telekom. An injury struck Galatasaray having their Serbian shining star Ivana Djerisilo sidelined and recently losing the ex-Brazil national team member Erika Coimbra to injury as well, Galatasaray were far from their best roster and performance. On the other hand, Vakifbank were out to test their new formation for the second time since their four-set win against Fakro Muszyna in which Turkish national team outside hitter Gozde Kirdar Sonsirma would play as opposite whereas the Polish star Glinka would switch to the outside hitter role. Glinka still continues not to receive but, according to Guidetti, they need two powerful spikers over the Number 4 position. That seems to work pretty well until now that they prevailed over Galatasaray as well as Muszyna and Zarechie Odintsovo with this formation. Nikolic’s skills as an outside hitter are in dark doubts in Turkey nowadays due to her inability to make two good receptions or two kills in a row so the left side of the net turned out to be a problem for Vakifbank this year. Glinka is already familiar to the outside hitter position and even to receiving but the Italian coach looks oblivious to the fact that the amount of lost points Nikolic caused this team owing to her adverse reception in two years is far more than tolerable now and Glinka may fare much better than her in that area. Since Galatasaray were missing their two main players, it is normal that they were not able to match to the power of Vakifbank. But Guidetti may regret a lot at the end of the season if he insists on not even giving a try to try out Glinka as a receiver and attacker.
Big surprise for some of Fenerbahce Acibadem fans but actually not that unexpected for most of the volleyball audience came this week. The “Yellow Angels†as called by their fans, were up against the lowest ranked team Karsiyaka who were comprised of players who also played for the junior team due to the financial trouble they underwent this year. The search of Ze Roberto to cover up the bluntly open gap in his team’s reception following Osmokrovic’s injury was evident again in this match. Middle blocker and captain Cigdem Can Rasna was once again an outside hitter next to Sokolova. The game was easy and Fenerbahce prevailed in an hour or so but the reception would soon curtail this team’s attacking power when they go against a really good serving tough team, which was the powerhouse Russian Dinamo Moscow in this week’s Champions League edition. The girls of Fenerbahce, who were defeated only for twice last year (Vakifbank in one leg of the Turkish Cup and Bergamo in Champions League final) both in five-setters, were crushed aside by the not-only-tall but also a high-quality defender team in straight sets. Tokatlioglu and Sokolova were the outside hitters for Fenerbahce this time but the target of the serves by Dinamo Moscow’s smart coach and players was the libero Yeldan. Every floating and long serves the Muscovites used all the way to 8 or 9-meter distance was a huge problem for Yeldan to pass to Fofao. In time, the Russians cleverly changed the target to infamous not-so-good receiver Tokatlioglu and sometimes to Sokolova. The outcome was a huge success. Fenerbahce was most of the time not able to construct fast and killer attacks. An unexpected out-of-shape Fofao not being able to add the German star Furst into play together Kasia Skowronska’s inability to kill the balls when she had the chances paved the way for the inevitable defeat. Nonetheless, the credit should definitely be given to the amazing digs and defences by each and every Dinamo Moscow player. The Russian defence miracle we had started to see very vaguely and bit by bit in Caprara’s times crystallized in the recent World Championship Russian roster coached by Vladimir Kuzyutkin. But it appears that the Russian defence has evolved not only at national level but also at club level and does not seem to deteriorate anytime soon. One positive note for Dinamo Moscow was the way Parkhomenko distributed the sets cleverly giving plenty of room to her hitters and leaving them mostly with one-man block.
Eczacibasi VitrA, on the other hand, had a pretty easy game against Iller Bankasi dispatching them in straight sets. These fast games in Turkish League should not be a surprise to Vivovolley readers considering the huge financial gap between the top 3-4 teams and the rest. What is really intriguing and equally doubtful about Lorenzo Micelli’s system is how he rotates Yevgeniya Dushkyevich to receive at the back line substituting each superstar Mirka Francia and Neslihan Darnel per one position with the libero Gulden Kayalar. The reception quality of Dushkyevich is definitely at a worse par than her abilities over the net and her help at the back line is a bit suspicious. In other words, Darnel and Francia are too precious to be substituted even per one rotation while the aid Dushkyevich brings to reception is not anymore higher quality than the Cuban-born Italian star. All Eczacibasi fans are doing right now in Turkey to hope that Micelli has a plan behind this formation but for now, they have all the right to cast doubts in their trust towards Micelli.
I will be back next week this time with an article about Turkish Men’s League.
Sincerely,
Murat N. Colakoglu
