A star player makes the difference at the Volleyball World Cup

The excitement in the stands is palpable as the ball heads towards Paola Egonu. Again and again. And the ball often ends up at the 23-year-old diagonal attacker from Italy this Saturday afternoon. With twenty smashes, Egonu excels in the bronze medal match against the United States (3-0) in the Omnisportcentrum. Egonu makes a total of 25 points and she knows that she can no longer miss the top scorer title at the Volleyball World Cup. It is not because of the according to many the best player in the world that the Italian women did not become world champions.

Volleyball is an extraordinary team sport. On the nine by nine meters court, the six players stand close to each other, every point won is celebrated together, just as every point for the opponent is processed together. Is there a sport where teammates so often give each other a double-handed high five, an encouraging tap or a boosting fist during a game? But volleyball is also a sport where individual class makes the difference. That proves the top three of the World Cup, which was played in the Netherlands and Poland in the past three weeks. All three teams on the podium have an outspoken star player. In the top five of the top scorers classification are two absolute world top players in addition to Egonu: the Serbian Tijana Boskovic and the Brazilian Gabriela ‘Gabi’ Guimaraes.

Boskovic and Gabi are the captains of the teams that will make Apeldoorn the volleyball capital of the world on Saturday evening and bring the 6,500 spectators to great excitement from the first ball. Serbia is defending champion, Brazil in the past three times losing finalist. Serbia won all eleven of its matches in this World Cup, while Brazil lost only to Japan in the group stage – the team against which it escaped elimination in the quarter-finals after trailing 2-0.

Score points

Tijana Boskovic, 1.93 meters, plays on the diagonal just like the equally tall Egonu. Her main task: to score points. She has been doing this since she made her debut in the national team in 2014 and became top scorer for Serbia at the world championship as a seventeen-year-old. She is also the strongest Serbian attacker in this World Cup, where her efficiency is particularly striking: 55.58 percent. Boskovic therefore converts more than half of the balls she receives into a score. In that respect, nobody comes close to Boskovic.

Gabi, 1.80 meters, is an all-rounder. As a passer-runner she is much more than a top scorer and that is also apparent from the various tournament statistics. Not only is Gabi high in the points standings, she is the best receiver and is second in the diggers, meaning she does a good job defensively too. Gabi made his national team debut in 2012, just after the golden period of the Brazilian volleyball players, who had become Olympic champions twice in a row. Bronze at the 2014 World Cup and silver at the Tokyo Games are the most important international awards for Gabi, who was missing from the previous World Cup due to a serious knee injury.

In the first set of the final this Saturday, the difference between the two star players is minimal. Boskovic bats in six runs, Gabi five. But in the final phase, with a score of 24-24, ‘The Boss’ gives Serbia the lead, after which the Brazilian number 10 smashes out half a meter at set point. It turns out to be the harbinger of a match that is decided remarkably quickly. Brazil can still keep up in the second set, but Boskovic’s nine points ultimately make the difference: 25-22. In the third set, the Serbian captain continues to score and Brazil quickly feels that it has no chance: 25-17. Serbia is undefeated champion, Boskovic is voted best diagonal attacker and most valuable player, just like in 2018. „I love to play volleyball, and that’s all”, is pretty much all she has to say afterwards. Gabi takes home a silver medal and a place on the World Cup dream team.

For that other world top player, Paola Egonu, the World Cup is coming to an end in an unpleasant way. The top scorer says after the bronze victory over the US that she has played her last game for the Italian national team for the time being. Despite the 275 points, the criticism in her own country of her game during the tournament was apparently great. Egonu, a daughter of Nigerian parents, is said to have even been asked by someone whether she is Italian. A racist statement during a tournament where equality for all was promoted through the Equal Jersey campaign, of which Egonu is one of the faces.

A sad end of more than three weeks and exactly one hundred volleyball matches. Just like the tournament for the Dutch women’s team ended in a minor key last week after the elimination in the second round. Due to the sixth place in the group, the team of national coach Avital Seling ended up in twelfth place in the ranking. The gap with the world top is bigger than hoped, the players sighed. Not so strange, because the Dutch team currently lacks a world-class player. No, we will not see volleyball players of the level of Tijana Boskovic, Gabi and Paola Egonu in the Netherlands for the time being.