Germany - DVL 2011/2012

congratulations to Berlin Recycling! But wasn't Generali Haching the dominator of the regular seson?? I'm a bit sorry for them..

The final series of the Bundesliga was undoubtedly the best one in years and one of the most remarkable they have probably ever had. Yes, indeed Haching entered the first match as a hot favourite, having dominated throughout the whole season (with the only exception of the German Cup final lost to Friedrichshafen 0-3) and facing the new team of Berlin. The guys from the capital invested some money to refresh their roster this year and despite the quality they had only few expected the results to come that soon. A few words about what I saw in these three games in Unterhaching and based on their display this year - Touzinsky is a player they had previously contracted, he knew the atmosphere in Berlin and is after all an Olympic gold medalist, but unlike what many people might consider, and also despite the last two points he made in the fifth decisive set on Sunday, his arrival in Berlin for a second time this winter wasn't the main reason for the great second half of the season BRV showed. He was often shaky both in attack and reception, but obviously had the trust of his coach. Maybe it was a momentum perfectly taken advantage of, a momentum that maybe caught Friedrichshafen and Unterhaching not fully focused. Sivula had a great impact on eliminating VfB in the semis, Carroll was often the hero against Haching, the young college setter Shoji was really great and was a very valuable signing for Lebedew based on the fact that the usual starter and captain Jaroslav Skach has been playing in Germany for more than 12 years now and is perfectly familiar to the opponents. Maybe one of the guys to contribute immensely as well was Tomas Kmet, a blocking machine, with a great efficiency in the final play-offs, probably the best blocker in the Bunedsliga along with Max Gunthor.

But on the other side, the guys from Haching were no weaker. Kaliberda played maybe his strongest volleyball this year, the decision to release Tille and convert Pruessener to a libero seemed absolutely successful, Shafranovich was very reliable throughout the whole season, with the only exception of the fifth decisive match where Hupka had to try and get things underway. I think these teams both deserved the title, I am sure that the score in the series would've been 9-9 with a decisive game in Unterhaching again if it had been necessary to win best of 10.

Every time Haching was dominitaing at home, Berlin came back stronger and was pushing the Bavarians more and more in the away games. And what a last championship game they made, intense for almost 2 hours, with a tie-break at 14-12 for the hosts. Then, when people were almost jumping and celebrating the title, Hupka's serve went into the net, and for the second match point Dunnes was blocked for 14-14. Two blocks by Touzinsky gave a minute later the victory by 14-16 to the guests in one of the best games I've seen live.

When the two teams are so balanced in general, like, for example, Macerata and Trento yesterday, the champion is really decided on only one or two points somewhere in a crazy tie-break, and this time it was meant for Berlin to bring the trophy home for the fourth time in history.

Congrats to the new champions! I truly enjoyed the season and the games I saw in Haching, but hopefully next year the board will decide to move an eventual final somewhere in a bigger hall, because it was weird to host 1500 people in a place designed for 800.

thank you very much for the detailed post YavorD... I read with great interest as I'm not expert about Germany's league and I was very curious to know more about it! so once again, congratulations to Berlin for the title!!!!