Germany - VBL 1. Bundesliga 2016/17

  • Trouble in Wiesbaden: Molly McCage broke a finger in training and will be out at least 6-8 weeks, Rebecca Schäperklaus has been ill for over 4 weeks now and it's uncertain when she'll be recovered. Wiesbaden is desperately looking for a last minute MB transfer, but actually they don't have money for that :S

  • Today the volleyball magazine in Germany, kind of official part of Germanys volleyball, published the contents of 10/16 print edition, also with preview of first leagues. And regarding this they wrote:


    "Es hat sich viel getan in der 1. Liga der Frauen. Der Meister aus Dresden muss ein neues Team einspielen und ist die Favoritenrolle damit los. Als neuen ersten Anwärter auf den Titel haben die Experten den letztjährigen Finalisten aus Stuttgart ausgemacht."


    Translation:


    "Much has happened in the first women's league. The champion from Dresden has to get a new team working and lost the role of favorite that way. The new first candidate for the title is seen by the experts as the last seasons finalist from the city of Stuttgart."


    This means of course, that Stuttgart will be considered as the hunted one this time by all other teams, as that was the case for Dresden last year. We will see, how the team copes with this new burden...

  • Another strong performance of Allianz MTV Stuttgart against a Chinese team: this time they won two sets rather impressively against Zehjiang, and lost first and fourth by the miminal margin possible. Taking into account, that motivation is limited and Michaela Mlejnková is still with Czech national team because they have to make an extra round to qualify for European Championships, I can tell again, that Dresden will have a very hard time against Stuttgart in Berlin in the supercup final just two weeks in future.

  • At that invitation tournament some interesting results were seen: USC Münster won in five sets against Rote Raben Vilsbiburg, where the first four sets were a very close race, only the tie-break was rather clear (15:7). Generally speaking I would expect Vilsbiburg to be clearly stronger than Münster. Dresden couldn't convince at all so far two weeks before supercup in Berlin, they won just against the inexperienced newcomers of Erfurt in three sets, lost against Köpenick (!) in five and against Münster in three (!). Considering they will have just one week to prepare with the three still missing Czech nationals, the risk for them in supercup final to get wiped off clearly by Stuttgart is high.

  • At that invitation tournament some interesting results were seen: USC Münster won in five sets against Rote Raben Vilsbiburg, where the first four sets were a very close race, only the tie-break was rather clear (15:7). Generally speaking I would expect Vilsbiburg to be clearly stronger than Münster. Dresden couldn't convince at all so far two weeks before supercup in Berlin, they won just against the inexperienced newcomers of Erfurt in three sets, lost against Köpenick (!) in five and against Münster in three (!). Considering they will have just one week to prepare with the three still missing Czech nationals, the risk for them in supercup final to get wiped off clearly by Stuttgart is high.


    Dresden's potential is unknown for sure. And you are likely correct about their chances in the Super Cup. But I would draw no conclusions about the long term quality of this team based on the Dippoldiswalde matches. They have not even had enough players in camp yet to practise 6 on 6. They have been without their head coach. And they only have one healthy regular middle blocker this weekend and had to call up two junior players to fill in on Friday and Saturday. Today they are playing with only one middle. They are treating this tournament as training, not a competition. I would take another look at Dresden in a month or so to see where this team is at.

  • Dresden's potential is unknown for sure. And you are likely correct about their chances in the Super Cup. But I would draw no conclusions about the long term quality of this team based on the Dippoldiswalde matches. They have not even had enough players in camp yet to practise 6 on 6. They have been without their head coach. And they only have one healthy regular middle blocker this weekend and had to call up two junior players to fill in on Friday and Saturday. Today they are playing with only one middle. They are treating this tournament as training, not a competition. I would take another look at Dresden in a month or so to see where this team is at.


    You are as right as me - today Dresden used the only default middle on both positions and won in three sets against Vilsbiburg. This was much better than before; but not only the supercup will be affected by this nevertheless difficult season start, also the league round will be affected in some matches in the first time, and in this competetive Bundesliga you can't get back lost matches, points and sets. So the initial disadvantage of Dresden will persist until the end of league round and result in a not too good playoff setting. Additionally speaking the roster of Stuttgart and Schwerin still seems stronger than that of Dresden, so their chances to get further than semi final in playoffs are no good IMHO. But I admit this is all theory and we will see, how the interesting coming season will unfold. By the way, for the overall picture of the league it is also better, when another team becomes champion than Dresden, which won the last three, to prevent one-sidedness...

  • I can't tell you general numbers - from Stuttgart general offer was just launched and the three tickets I have buyed for myself and two other fans already a while ago are not representative ;) .


    Just continuing guessing: our head coach from Allianz MTV Stuttgart thinks, 8.000 spectators will be fine and the DVV cup record of 12.000 is rather hard to beat.

  • Today at the press conference some facts were presented:


    - currently just 3.000 tickets were already sold
    - the hall capacity will be reduced for the event to 11.000 spectators, so under no circumstances the record of Mannheim by last DVV cup can be topped
    - the competition shall be established as season launching event


    Estimates are similar now to Stuttgarts head coach: they estimate 6.000 to 7.000, which would be good, but not outstandig, when you consider that in Berlin in Max Schmeling hall the participating Berlin Recycling Volleys sometimes succeed to get more than 8.000. But this event on this scale is new, so there is space to develop in future. The location is not fixed yet, for example Cologne can be an alternative with similar big arena and there is no first league team located at all (currently, maybe we see DSHS SnowTrex Köln the next years going up from second league of women?).

  • The volleyball magazine has classified the teams in detail and I can sum up, what the experts think is most likely the order at the end of the new season:


    1. Stuttgart


    2. Schwerin


    3. Dresden and Potsdam (!)


    5. Münster, Vilsbiburg, Wiesbaden


    Hard to judge is Aachen (Ladies in Black), maybe they can get to 5. to? Also Köpenick is considered to be comparable.


    The weakest teams are likely the two from Thuringia: Suhl and new Erfurt, they will fight primarily not to go down to second (again).


    Potsdam didn't live up to high expectations at last, but with new head coach and some new important players this may change, but I was somewhat surprised about that and IMHO they will have a hard time to go past the three teams considered 5....

  • At the moment any evaluations can only be based on the individual talent of the players, everything else will show during the season. There have always been teams with disappointing results despite great individual talent and teams with surprising results despite mediocre individual talent, so I'm not a fan of pre-season predictions. But in terms of individual talent, I agree that Stuttgart, Schwerin, Dresden and Potsdam are the top 4 teams.

  • German league will have good setters (Hanke, Apitz, Smutna, Imoudu, Kemmsies) and decent liberos (Buakaew, Durr, Courtois, Schoot ,Knip) but there is almost no good MB or spiker in the rosters. Any secret talents among newcomers?

  • German league will have good setters (Hanke, Apitz, Smutna, Imoudu, Kemmsies) and decent liberos (Buakaew, Durr, Courtois, Schoot ,Knip) but there is almost no good MB or spiker in the rosters. Any secret talents among newcomers?


    Please consider that Bundesliga clubs just can't pay for world class attackers, this is what you meant, I guess?

  • German league will have good setters (Hanke, Apitz, Smutna, Imoudu, Kemmsies) and decent liberos (Buakaew, Durr, Courtois, Schoot ,Knip) but there is almost no good MB or spiker in the rosters. Any secret talents among newcomers?

    For OPP position, I guess Liz McMahon (last season in Korean league), Louisa Lippmann (improved very much in NT this summer), Aiyana Whitney and Marta Drpa will be the star players. For OH, Jocelynn Birks seems to have been a good NCAA player, Roslandy Acosta is very good and Nika Daalderop is supposed to be a very talented girl. For MB, Lauren Barfield is not a big star (possibly because so far she only played for weak clubs) but she's a very good MB, Kerley Becker also stayed in my mind from seeing her in Volero in the Top Volley tournament some years ago, Anna Kalinovskaya is a very experienced and good player too...


    I guess after the first few rounds of the league we'll have a better clue about potential stars :win:

  • For OPP position, I guess Liz McMahon (last season in Korean league), Louisa Lippmann (improved very much in NT this summer), Aiyana Whitney and Marta Drpa will be the star players. For OH, Jocelynn Birks seems to have been a good NCAA player, Roslandy Acosta is very good and Nika Daalderop is supposed to be a very talented girl. For MB, Lauren Barfield is not a big star (possibly because so far she only played for weak clubs) but she's a very good MB, Kerley Becker also stayed in my mind from seeing her in Volero in the Top Volley tournament some years ago, Anna Kalinovskaya is a very experienced and good player too...


    I guess after the first few rounds of the league we'll have a better clue about potential stars :win:


    Don't forget Renata Sandor (Stuttgart, OH), who is getting back to former shape visibly.

  • Thanks for in Matthias, I am also curious about Mlejnkova's performance this year. She is constantly improving, this year could be her breakthrough season

  • Dresden reports, they have sold 200 tickets for supercup so far. Considering the much lower distance to Berlin against the DVV cup location Mannheim, where they sold much more, this hints also not to a very high number of spectators.