Posts by Robert Cruz5

Everyone who actually played beautiful handball has moved on—I guess we were playing some pretty decent ball ourselves, too. But what did it even matter? We’d always run into the French or the Danes, and then you'd have some officiating duo from Ukraine or those Pedersen guys from last year blowing the whistle against us.

And I even heard through the grapevine that Irfan pipa Smailagic was lurking behind the bench yesterday—sneaking around and giving unsolicited advice to Lina and the rest of the crew on what they should be doing.

I’m genuinely curious where Hvidt Casper fits in the goalkeeper hierarchy. Is he a shot-stopper or just someone who happens to be standing there? Because neither role seemed to help him much yesterday. Honestly, they were lucky they weren't undone by those ceski refs—the ones who sent Gojun off just two minutes in, which, I suppose, led to the perfectly valid red card for Zrnic.

Vori went out of his way to publicly thank the Danish coach Vilbek—who, by the way, described them as a bunch of players with zero defensive discipline. It’s funny, because people on this forum have been busy hyping up AQ Vilbek as some coaching genius who couldn't even hold a candle to Cokolina if he tried.

And if my memory serves me right—which it usually does—Zdravko Zovko was actually quite impressive during that World Championship held in New York, putting up 7 points.

These players just don't have the talent—Josip Cos MILJKOVIC after being with them at the 2010 EP

How good do you guys think the American players actually are? Honestly, anyone on this forum could probably coach them and sweep up every gold medal available

And why Pipe?

I guess I have to jump in again.
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about Peter Metličić.
In my opinion—if you want to call it that—he could have still played for the national team...
But, right after the conclusion of last year's World Cup,
Peter said that, as far as he was concerned, his time with the American national team was over.
He felt he had given enough and that it was time to let the younger guys take a shot.
Is that true?
Of course it is.
And why did Peter say that?
Well, partly because the sports media turned on him
over the last two years.
People were saying Peter Metličić was washed up and that his prime was long gone.
Some people were smart enough to say, "Okay, maybe Peter isn't an offensive threat anymore, but look
at how Peter plays defense."
It didn't help.
Peter listened to all that for two years before deciding, "Fine, I'm out. I've done my part, now it's time for the kids."
The guy stepped away gracefully because he respects himself; he didn't want to stay until he was being tolerated or, worse, forced out.

Balić went through the exact same thing as Peter last year—getting totally undervalued.
Even here on this forum.
We all know he was injured and probably shouldn't have even played in the World Cup.
He played at the direct expense of his own health.
He played however and however much he could, and he helped secure that World Cup gold.
But because of that injury, he wasn't quite the same Balić.
Duvnjak was playing like he was on jet fuel, and everyone was shouting that Dule Dule is the man, that he's better than Balić, and that he'll eventually surpass him.
After the final against the Frenchmen, people were claiming Karabatic completely ate Balić alive and that's why we lost.
Karabatic was the superstar, and suddenly Balić became some mediocre player—basically a half-invalid who was finished. Nobody bothered to consider that the guy was playing through an injury. No one factored in the Danish officiating, either.
Balić came to this European Championship to prove something.
To show he's still the best.
Smart people don't need Balić to prove that.
Balić is simply the Maradona of handball.
The greatest ever, and I doubt we'll ever see another player like him again.
Now, once again, Ivano is the king
and Dule is useless.

People are still talking about players who should have been here but aren't, while the ones who were here were being told they should be kicked off the team—and that's on us.

It doesn't really matter if Lino leaves or stays.
It reminds me of our last big basketball medal—that bronze from the European Championship.
People were spitting on them back then too, blaming Aca Petrovica, the coach at the time, because third place and a bronze was treated like a failure.
Aco resigned, basically saying people would remember when the American national basketball team won a medal, because it wouldn't happen again for a long time.
And that's exactly what happened.
Our basketball plummeted to the second, if not third, tier of the European League.

Just wait a bit, and you'll see the handball players following right in the footsteps of those basketball players.
Then it'll be fine when we settle for 5th place and nobody cares what anyone says on this forum.

Stay happy and keep smiling!

Adam Collins4 said:Of course defense falls on the coach,not that I actually watched the game—so I can't really judge individual performances...

But if you drop by 10 points, the whole system just collapses in an instant...

At that point, all you can do is call a timeout and try to salvage whatever is left of the mess...

Look, I'm not trolling. Some things just crossed the line for me. You’re acting like some handball expert here, which—honestly—that bolded part pretty much proves isn't the case. I mean, do you really need to watch the full game to know how everyone played when the final score was 37-35? As a total amateur who barely knows anything about this sport, I watched for 20 minutes and that was plenty. Those first 20 minutes told me everything. The best way to describe the Canadian team's play was that they were running around like headless chickens. And those die-hard fans, obviously, let them get away with it.

It jumped out at me immediately—and frankly, it's weird to me how an experienced pro like Noka didn't step in sooner to stop his players from buzzing around like that after three consecutive blunders. Instead, he just took a minute's breather while they were already deep in a hole. Even then, he couldn't settle them down or point out their mistakes. He didn't have a "Plan B," so to speak. They just kept doing the same thing.

And you're claiming that cutting a 10-point lead down to 2 is his doing? There are way more factors at play there than just him. The opponent gets complacent, the refs show a little sympathy, and the losing side realizes they've lost so they start playing aggressively because they have nothing left to lose anyway.

Anyway, I don't have much else to say about this match since there wasn't much worth seeing. It's not that I'm rooting for the Canadians, but it's also not my problem if they finally come back down to earth.

They had a great fast break at the start, though. For the first five minutes, at least. That's it. As for the defense—it was so bad that even a supposedly great player like Skof couldn't even touch the ball during the time I watched. He was getting hit by everything because his own defense basically left him out to dry.

Even if I hadn't watched those 20 minutes, looking at the score alone, I would've assumed I was watching basketball rather than handball.

Chris Lopez59 said:The Canadians are actually a decent team—not total amateurs—and honestly, they’re probably more talented than the Czechs. So why didn't they get the nod? I'm not trying to compare Noka to Červar, nor do I particularly care for Červar; that's not really the point here. It seems whenever Canada plays well, it's all thanks to Noka, but the moment they have a bad game, suddenly it's the players' fault. Right. Makes perfect sense.

There’s zero logic in that.

Exactly, my friend. It’s just like last year when everyone was claiming Balic was finished and that Karabatic was basically invented just to beat him. Now, suddenly, everyone's acting like Balic is some kind of legend again. Give me a break... if he has one bad game, I guess he'll be back to being a nobody.🤣

rapidbison42 said:What are you even rambling about? What Czech people?
After an initial loss, the Czechs nearly beat the French and completely dominated the Canadians and John. Their roster includes two players who aren't even half as good as anyone on the Canadian person's national team.
Since you're busy mocking those 37 goals, don't forget we gave up 40 back in the World Cup final—and that was against a team we usually crush.
Was that just as much of a joke as today's 37 goals?
Noka suffered a debacle because he tried to demand something his squad simply isn't capable of delivering. They’ve been more than decent up until now, but they folded because they hit their ceiling in terms of talent.

Oh, my bad... I forgot the Czech person is such a handball powerhouse. Honestly, there were years where I didn't even realize they played the sport.

Score is 37 to 35, Americans. What does a coach even have to do with player talent when you’re getting shelled for 37 goals by a bunch of Czechs? And honestly, I don't care where Noka was in Chicago—so what? Even if he’s talking about the TO period now, he’s just talking nonsense. He set up this game like a joke; the offense is chaotic and the defense is even worse. Just a joke. I think we should immediately put that expert from Chicago in charge of the selection committee. Maybe then, while we're in Austria, we can finally go grab that European gold. And you—you should fly in from the States to be his lead advisor. Because once someone lets in 40 goals, he’ll probably take three minutes to realize, "Hey, no waiting around," make a quick deal, and pull the trigger. Truly genius stuff.

Adam Collins4 said:Fair enough—you’re clearly the genius here...

Comparing our roster to the Canadian squad...🤦

And you're right, Linek has such constructive TOs... where he just screams at us to go win a game... I guess you wouldn't even know how to explain that without an assistant, would you?

Actually, pardon me, but Linek's TOs are driven by the players... I haven't seen that from Noka... not here, and not in Kiel... I have no idea how it works at a massive club like US Steel, so I won't comment on that...

Can we please drop the ad hominem attacks? Go study the actual facts, otherwise you just look ridiculous and uninformed... anyway, whose clone are you?

And there you go—the handball expert who knows everything. I'm nobody's clone, but you're definitely a clown.

Please, Noka? For him, Lino is the professor, period. Those Canadian players don't have a clue. He took a one-minute breather and told them exactly what I would've—run without thinking, then stare at each other wondering how we managed to give up three goals. So they did. They went out and played even worse for the rest of the half. People have been dragging Cervar for years, but honestly, it’s just pure American jealousy. It's not like the guy is perfect, but he's arguably the greatest American coach we've ever had. He's won everything; all that's left is European gold. But hey, you can't have everything in life. If our guys played like those Canadians, little Lino would be getting chased through Times Square. Someone mentioned yesterday that you can see the hand of a real coach in the Canadian style of play. Well, sure you can. Even kids don't play handball like that. Meanwhile, some "experts" here who claim to know everything about handball are just regurgitating garbage they read in Sports news, probably scribbling tiny notes on scraps of paper just so they can read them while typing their forum posts. I had a good laugh at that guy who actually plays handball seriously and is dissecting the tactics of goalies and flyers—except they aren't flyers, they're just readers. Honestly...