Germany - VBL 1. Bundesliga 2016/17

  • I will be at Hexenkessel Neuköllnerstrasse tomorrow :drink: :super:


    Probably Aachen and Schwerin will meet each other again in quarterfinals, so tomorrow's game is already a nice indication of both teams's current shape :win:


    Btw, Nika Daalderop likely wants to stay in Aachen next season. :drink: :drink:


    Sadly enough due to current table this match is totally superfluous (Schwerin will stay on top and Aachen on place 8) like some others and can't be taken seriously therefore, whatever happens. Kind of friendly game...

  • Today Alex Waibl, head coach of Dresden, questioned considerations of Bundesliga head: because it seems possible, that Schwerin proceeds to CEV challenge cup finals and the league schedule didn't took it into account, league considers to go back from the first-time (until now only in men's league practised) best-of-five in semis of playoffs to best-of-three as before, to get Schwerin more opportunities to fit into schedule.


    Background: Michael Evers has functions both in Schwerin as in VBL management.


    So far Schwerin played respectively will play 22 league round matches, 6 challenge cup matches and 4 German cup matches, totalling to 32. They will surely proceed to semis in playoffs, which requires at least (probably exactly) two more matches, than 34. Since than it could be 2x5 more playoff and 2x2 more challenge cup matches, which would make a total of up to 48 season matches, compared to the high value of 46 executed by Stuttgart last season, and everybody could see the fatigue in Stuttgarts players in the last playoff matches last year.


    Considering this, it would be understandable to reduce playoff-semis, but it is no good, that they doesn't schedule this before. Because reaching finals of CEV challenge cup is not out-of-the-world for German clubs: Dresden won this competition in 2010 for example.

  • I will be at Hexenkessel Neuköllnerstrasse tomorrow :drink: :super:


    Probably Aachen and Schwerin will meet each other again in quarterfinals, so tomorrow's game is already a nice indication of both teams's current shape :win:


    Btw, Nika Daalderop likely wants to stay in Aachen next season. :drink: :drink:


    You were right, she definetly want to stay in Aachen ( read "by Saskia" ) for another year.But still no choice for her for beach or hall volleyball.
    The choice should be easier for her ( she told us) if Morrison will ask her for NT this summer...

  • Stuttgart - Potsdam 3:1 (13:25 25:20 25:21 25:19)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2128.pdf
    MVP: Julia Schaefer / Marta Drpa
    Stuttgart without Mlejnkova, apparently she has an injury but no details yet. Wiebke Silge with yet another disappointing performance.


    Dresden - Münster 1:3 (21:25 25:21 24:26 21:25)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2129.pdf
    MVP: Kadie Rolfzen / Jennifer Keddy


    Köpenick - Vilsbiburg 2:3 (25:22 25:15 19:25 13:25 13:15)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2130.pdf
    MVP: Nicole Walch / Naoko Hashimoto


    Aachen - Schwerin 0:3 (20:25 14:25 23:25)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2131.pdf
    MVP: Frauke Neuhaus / Maren Brinker (73% attack)
    Louisa Lippmann missing with tonsillitis but I think she should be back for playoffs.


    Erfurt - Wiesbaden 1:3 (18:25 22:25 25:17 22:25)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2132.pdf
    MVP: ? / Tanja Großer


    Ranking after regular season:
    1 Schwerin 22 19 62:17 57
    2 Stuttgart 22 17 56:25 53
    3 Dresden 22 16 55:30 48
    4 Potsdam 22 15 52:39 42
    5 Wiesbaden 22 15 52:40 40
    6 Vilsbiburg 22 12 46:37 38
    7 Münster 22 12 43:43 35
    8 Aachen 22 9 41:43 29
    9 Köpenick 22 8 37:48 24
    10 Suhl 22 5 24:56 15
    11 Erfurt 22 3 18:60 10
    12 VCO Berlin 22 1 17:65 5


    Pre-playoffs (1st matches on Wednesday, 2nd matches on Saturday, if necessary 3rd matches next Wednesday):
    Münster vs Suhl
    Aachen vs Köpenick

  • Two desicive matches went both for Stuttgart and against Dresden: while we could defeat Potsdam in Stuttgart in four sets despite a catastrophic bad begin of the match, Dresden faulted totally, lost to Münster in four, so Stuttgart at the end has not only one match, but also 5 points more than Dresden.


    Easy living was for Wiesbaden: after winning two sets, while Vilsbiburg lost the first two in Köpenick, decision was also already finished, in the end Wiesbaden won in four and Vilsbiburg in tie-break, but order was already defined. All other matches had no relevance anymore. The pairings of quarters are as following:


    3. Dresden vs. 6. Vilsbiburg
    4. Potsdam vs. 5. Wiesbaden


    This is completely clear already, but both are promising to be not one-sided: with the performance at last, despite home advantage of Potsdam Wiesbaden will be a real threat for them, at the end just two points behind and both with 15 to 7 wins.


    Dresden is that unreliable, that the experienced red raves of Vilsbiburg can put up a fight against Dresden, eventually even thrash them, if they are not careful.


    The other pairings are not ultimately defined, but it doesn't matter for Schwerin or Stuttgart, who their opponents are, they are just to superior. Possibilities:


    1. Schwerin against weakest pre-playoff-survivor, would be Suhl, if they win against Münster, or otherwise loser of Aachen vs. Köpenick.
    2. Stuttgart against the better pre-playoff survivor, would be Münster if they win, otherwise winer of Aachen vs. Köpenick


    Dresden is already out of race for championship IMHO, they just can't compete on the required level this season. Final series between Schwerin and Stuttgart seems unavoidable with Schwerin as clear-cut favorite, Stuttgart has to have those famous moments to turn the tide against the favorites, which are far away and hard to travel to...


    By the way, my ears feel still a little strange, because we were extremely loud in Stuttgarts SCHARRena, helping our team a lot and obviously also impressing Potsdam in not so positive manner, they lack clearly the experience to play against a such loud and home team / opponent supporting crowd.

  • I'm rooting for Schwerin to win the championship this year. Very likeable team :) .


    Of course this is also a roaster philosophy battle: multi-national roaster of Stuttgart with very few Germans against German national centered roaster of Schwerin. It's an huge difference indeed, but Stuttgart players have all a good character, by the way.

  • Due to well-informed media in one of the two financially strongest locations of women's volleyball in Germany (this time it was Dresden), next season not only pre-playoffs will no more take place, but playoffs will only be semis and finals. That's reasonable, because no team not among the best four of league round will be able to win the championship. I suppose, similar as in Russia some years ago they will be both played best-of-five than.


    Background: we have too many matches under week and too many collisions respective English weeks with two matches in a week even with league matches now, they want to make load on the teams lower and playing mostly at the weekend (aside from German cup and European cups of course).


    I think, this makes sense. Currently shortening playoff-series from best-of-five to best-of-three in semis and finals is seriously discussed, because Schwerin may play some more Challenge cup matches - Stuttgart will be out near to certainty after loss at home yesterday against Casalmaggiore (CEV cup) and can finish this adventure before playoff quarters. But Schwerin is supposed to go to semis tomorrow, which causes issues with playoff schedule.

  • First pre-playoff matches were played today:


    Münster - Suhl 3:0 (25:15 25:12 25:22)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2500.pdf (soon)
    MVP: Kaisa Alanko (6 aces) / Miloslava Lauerova
    Great match also by Jennifer Keddy with 77% attack and 6 blocks. Suhl without their starting setter Delabarre had no chance today.


    Aachen - Köpenick 3:1 (25:21 26:24 21:25 25:21)
    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2016-17/Women/&2503.pdf
    MVP: Ioana Baciu / Dominice Steffen (5 aces)
    Weak match by Aachen's middles (Polder 0/9 att, Kalinovskaya still not fit after her ankle injury apparently) but all of their wing hitters with good scores and %. However it seems to have been a close match and at home Köpenick should have a decent chance to take the series to a 3rd match.


    Next matches on Saturday.

  • Due to well-informed media in one of the two financially strongest locations of women's volleyball in Germany (this time it was Dresden), next season not only pre-playoffs will no more take place, but playoffs will only be semis and finals. That's reasonable, because no team not among the best four of league round will be able to win the championship. I suppose, similar as in Russia some years ago they will be both played best-of-five than.


    Background: we have too many matches under week and too many collisions respective English weeks with two matches in a week even with league matches now, they want to make load on the teams lower and playing mostly at the weekend (aside from German cup and European cups of course).


    I think, this makes sense. Currently shortening playoff-series from best-of-five to best-of-three in semis and finals is seriously discussed, because Schwerin may play some more Challenge cup matches - Stuttgart will be out near to certainty after loss at home yesterday against Casalmaggiore (CEV cup) and can finish this adventure before playoff quarters. But Schwerin is supposed to go to semis tomorrow, which causes issues with playoff schedule.

    If this is the truth then VBL has finally lost their connections to their clubs.
    Never ever this should become truth! Absolutely BULLSHIT!

  • If this is the truth then VBL has finally lost their connections to their clubs.
    Never ever this should become truth! Absolutely BULLSHIT!


    Of course this is no good news for the smaller/weaker clubs, to which also five times (since unity) German champions USC Münster currently belong. This would be a two-class final phase, where only the four best (currently Schwerin, Stuttgart, Dresden and Potsdam) teams would finish the show of the league. This would be a disadvantage of course, but the question is, what is more important? European cup participation is only for the stronger clubs, but those determine the standing of the leauge on European level, which is important for the league too. So there is no easy answer, as strong Stuttgart supporter I very much appreciate this change: less load on players, more matches at the weekend than now, not the sometimes notable disadvantage to teams not playing European cups (especially of such which were qualified formally, for example Potsdam and Wiesbaden).

  • So there is no easy answer, as strong Stuttgart supporter I very much appreciate this change: less load on players, more matches at the weekend than now, not the sometimes notable disadvantage to teams not playing European cups (especially of such which were qualified formally, for example Potsdam and Wiesbaden).

    Less midweek matches and a more reasonable schedule for the top teams sounds great and almost everyone would probably agree with this. But i don't think that reducing the overall number of matches is the way to go. Less matches mean less income for teams and less sponsor representation as well. We are already "out of business" for almost 7/12 months, how is this attractive for any sponsor who thinks about investing in Volleyball?


    So imho, it is the international calendar (NT competitions) which needs to be adjusted, in order to give the leagues some air to breathe. Just remember, we started this years Bundesliga in late October !


    But this has been topic here for a couple of times already and i am not optimistic that we will see changes.



  • Another topic is how likely are changes indeed? You are right, pauses between league seasons are too long. But the CEV is not acting for us, but for itself or maybe its most important member federations at most, what the most important national federations want (i.e. Turkey, Russia, Italy, Poland), while interests of federations like DVV and VBL are just ignored, because they have no standing in Europe. If it comes to sport politics, things become very complicated and difficult to impossible to influence things.

  • Of course this is no good news for the smaller/weaker clubs, to which also five times (since unity) German champions USC Münster currently belong. This would be a two-class final phase, where only the four best (currently Schwerin, Stuttgart, Dresden and Potsdam) teams would finish the show of the league. This would be a disadvantage of course, but the question is, what is more important? European cup participation is only for the stronger clubs, but those determine the standing of the leauge on European level, which is important for the league too. So there is no easy answer, as strong Stuttgart supporter I very much appreciate this change: less load on players, more matches at the weekend than now, not the sometimes notable disadvantage to teams not playing European cups (especially of such which were qualified formally, for example Potsdam and Wiesbaden).

    Perhaps we should play Bundesliga with only four teams? Would this be good for your Stuttgart ladies?


    My opinion in this depends not on current level of USC Münster!


    The ideas are results of short time thinking.
    If you have a league of 12 teams, most likely the half of them have no chances for 4th place anymore after half of the season. How can this be interesting for fans, sponsors, VBL - even the players? The gap will get bigger and bigger and the league more and more boring. The league will shrink, perhaps to 10 teams or perhaps to 8 teams. Consequence of this will be that less and less talents will make their way to a team of Bundesliga.

  • I agree with Nirk. I think 8 teams playoffs is a MUST to keep the season interesting. All other systems have failed badly in the last 10 years.


    Meanwhile, Vilsbiburg has transfered Vanessa Agbortabi from VCO Berlin for the playoffs. She will return to Berlin next season to finish school and from 2018 on will be fully Vilsbiburg's players, she already has signed a contract with them.

  • I agree with Nirk. I think 8 teams playoffs is a MUST to keep the season interesting. All other systems have failed badly in the last 10 years.


    Meanwhile, Vilsbiburg has transfered Vanessa Agbortabi from VCO Berlin for the playoffs. She will return to Berlin next season to finish school and from 2018 on will be fully Vilsbiburg's players, she already has signed a contract with them.


    I can easily live with quarterfinals only, and just cancellation of this time-wasting pre-playoffs.

  • A direct interview of tag24 (Dresden) with Jung from VBL confirmed, that they have already (pre-)decided to cancel pre-playoffs and quarters of playoffs for next season, they are convinced, that the Bundesliga conference in June will decide to proceed this way. Due to my experiences I think, this is really certain, but will not hold for more than one season: when playoffs were re-introduced a number of years ago (before some years only league round was played), they also had only semis and final in playoffs, but the year after this introduction they introduced quarters.


    And it is also regarding sports questionable, to omit quarters altogether, because especially 4th against 5th (currently Potsdam vs. Wiesbaden), but also 3rd against 6th (currently Dresden vs. Vilsbiburg) are not that clear, how the outcome will be, so they should be carried out.


    One could think of playing half quarters too: just 4-5 and 3-6 and the winners play in semis against 1st and 2nd. Than at least half of league (6 of a maximum of 12) would be involved in playoffs, which is also resilient against shrinking of league size due to financial issues, for example only 9 professional teams remaining... and it would reduce load on teams on the top two spots (currently Schwerin and Stuttgart) nevertheless. This could be a compromise worth to thinking of IMHO.


    But we have to wait, how it develops, because I fear, league head will not listen to respective considering rational proposals... federations are hard to convince of good solutions, deciding often too much on their own...


  • Meanwhile, Vilsbiburg has transfered Vanessa Agbortabi from VCO Berlin for the playoffs. She will return to Berlin next season to finish school and from 2018 on will be fully Vilsbiburg's players, she already has signed a contract with them.


    That's interesting, because obviously there is a whole bunch of special rules for VCO Berlin players, usual transfers are no more possible since begin of February. And Liana Mesa Luaces is questionable as opposite for the playoffs, so this was a very good move by the experienced red raves of Vilsbiburg. Remember, they won German championship in 2008 and 2010, DVV cup in 2009 and 2014 and have played many tight matches against Dresden - they openly admit, that they will attack the defending champions to win the quarter, they know very well, that Dresden is rather vulnerable this time compared to the three previous seasons. I think they pose a major threat for Dresden and would disturb semi finals with a win, because than they would play Schwerin and instead of Schwerin Stuttgart would get the winner of Potsdam vs. Wiesbaden as opponent.

  • That's interesting, because obviously there is a whole bunch of special rules for VCO Berlin players, usual transfers are no more possible since begin of February. And Liana Mesa Luaces is questionable as opposite for the playoffs, so this was a very good move by the experienced red raves of Vilsbiburg. Remember, they won German championship in 2008 and 2010, DVV cup in 2009 and 2014 and have played many tight matches against Dresden - they openly admit, that they will attack the defending champions to win the quarter, they know very well, that Dresden is rather vulnerable this time compared to the three previous seasons. I think they pose a major threat for Dresden and would disturb semi finals with a win, because than they would play Schwerin and instead of Schwerin Stuttgart would get the winner of Potsdam vs. Wiesbaden as opponent.


    Dresden is more than vulnerable, IMHO. Unless they suddenly learn how to receive serve with much better passing than they have lately, I don't see them winning even the quarterfinals. Teams now know how to beat them; just serve aggressively and Dresden will be out of system more often than not. Dresden's passing has been bad all season; in the last few league matches it has been worse. Absolutely no confidence shown by these players.


    It leads me to wonder if Waibl's "aggressive" coaching style has eroded their confidence?

  • I can easily live with quarterfinals only, and just cancellation of this time-wasting pre-playoffs.


    I assume that the purpose of having multiple playoff rounds at all is to maintain interest, draw crowds, make some gate money, and deliver more returns to sponsors.


    I fail to see how reducing the number of teams or shortening the playoff round achieves these objectives.


    If my assumption is wrong, why have any playoffs?