Germany - DVL 1. Bundesliga 2013/14

AACHEN DREI - SCHWERIN NUUUUULL

Great match by Aachen and totally deserved in semifinal!!!

I wonder why Mudritskaya was not there. She had shoulder problems lately but yesterday was written that she would play and now she wasn't even in the roster. But yes, what a difference! Both teams showed completely the opposite of what they did on Saturday! Aachen with very few errors and smart play, Schwerin completely lost and without brains. Vilponen must be the worst player of the whole league and Schwerin signed her for 2 years

Quote from flyingdutchman

Aachen's opponent in semi's is still unknown....depends on result of Wiesbaden - Münster (match isn't finished yet)...either Dresden or Vilsbiburg.... presumably it will be Vilsbiburg

Actually it should be Dresden because Wiesbaden is about to beat Münster, then it will be Dresden-Aachen and Wiesbaden-Vilsbiburg.

Wiesbaden - Münster 3:0 (25:20, 25:17, 25:15)
http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2013-14/Women/&2511.pdf
MVP: Julia Osterloh / Linda Dörendahl
After two thrilling 5-set-matches, today Wiesbaden won without problems. Münster with disastrous attacking performance (21%, 15 err/13 blocked) Maybe Petrausch's injury in 1st set broke the team's rhythm, but it's a bit disappointing end for an overall very positive season of Münster. Wiesbaden also under 30% in attack but less errors and better serving and blocking. MVP medal for Julia Osterloh probably was a birthday present (she's 28 today) by Axel Büring because judging from stats she didn't do anything special...

Aachen - Schwerin 3:0 (25:21, 25:13, 25:22)
http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2013-14/Women/&2517.pdf
MVP: Femke Stoltenborg / Veronika Hroncekova
Schwerin without Mudritskaya had no chance today. Aachen learned from their mistakes from Saturday and played much cleverer in attack, in difficult situations avoiding direct mistakes and waiting for better chances or opponent errors. Stoltenborg with very good ball distribution deserved MVP medal today, but also Valachova's defense was very important today. Also Jordanne Scott finally with a good match as OPP and a crashing spike at match point
Not much positive to say about Schwerin today...their reception has been terrible in all three QF matches and without Mudritskaya it was too predictable that all the important balls would go to Souza. Jana Poll simply is not a player for teams with such high goals, Laura Weihenmaier outperformed her in all three matches. Janine Völker is overrated too, she just spends most of the match yelling "Sicherung!!!" (= cover the attack!) at her team and looking annoyed when someone makes a mistake. Vilponen, as I said before, is about as suitable for Schwerin as a clown at a funeral.

Some general comments about Schwerin: already before the season I was a bit confused by their transfers and it turns out that my opinion was right. Signing two players from Finland? OK, Pihlajamäki was really good when she played in Stuttgart two years ago, but Vilponen?? I wonder if Schwerin even saw as much as a video of her before signing her. She has a terrible technique, she can hit very hard but she has no control about where the ball goes, and today she had some pathetic mistakes in defense as well. Isailovic and Poll are not bad players, but not players for a top team. The only good transfers Schwerin made before the season were Radenkovic and Hippe who eventually got injured. It turned out that the players Schwerin signed because of injuries (Hroncekova and Mudritskaya) were much better choices than the ones they signed in first place I hope they'll make better choices for next season because money should not be a problem. On the other hand, without playing CL, it will be hard to get top players there.

So, back to the teams that still are playing

Playoff semifinals on Saturday will be:
Dresden - Aachen, 17.30 live on http://www.dvllive.tv
Wiesbaden - Vilsbiburg (probably no broadcast unless Vilsbiburg brings their camera to Wiesbaden)

In the end, the top 4 teams from regular season all made it to semifinal.

Quote from Burak

What's goin' on ? That's means, Schwerin will not play CL next season ?

Good question. Germany has two places for CL. I guess Dresden will take one. Wiesbaden probably won't have money for Euro cups at all and definitely not for CL. Vilsbiburg usually plays CEV or Challenge Cup but they never played CL before so I doubt they'll do it next season. Aachen has never before played any Euro cups because usually they were 9th-11th in the ranking, and they play in a small hall so I'm pretty sure that if they play any Euro cup, it won't be CL either. So the question is, will CEV allow the 5th ranked of regular season to play in CL if nobody else above them wants to play there?

Match point of Aachen - Schwerin

BAAAAAAM

Update: Tatyana Mudritskaya injured her back in training yesterday and couldn't even travel to Aachen.

Without all the injuries they had this season (Brandt, Hippe, Radenkovic, Mudritskaya), Schwerin probably would have been top 4. But then, Potsdam without all their injuries could have been champion Vilsbiburg for example also had a lot of injuries but they have been able to compensate it because their backup players, especially Helterhoff and Pogany, have performed surprisingly well. That can't be said for Schwerin's backups...

I just watched 1st half of Aachen-Schwerin now...and wow did Aachen play great yesterday!!! The team was really "clicking", all elements worked really well and they had a great flow in their game. I hope they can show the same quality on Saturday as well, but so far Aachen hasn't won a single set against Dresden this season.

By the way, the stats are wrong in some points. For example Stoltenborg scored at least 4 points with 2nd balls but in the stats there is only 1 point for her.

In the 1st match I expect Dresden to win without too many problems. They could prepare a whole week and keep their usual training rhythm while Aachen had to play yesterday and will probably travel tomorrow. Dresden also has more options to substitute, Aachen can only change OPP and setter. However, without Perry, Dresden also has problems from the outside and Aachen needs to try to exploit those, then the series can be interesting.

Good news: also the 2nd semifinal Wiesbaden - Vilsbiburg will be shown as 1 camera stream on Sunday 16.00 CET. Apparently Vilsbiburg takes their camera to the match, I just hope the internet connection in the hall in Rüsselsheim will be good enough for the stream to work. But DVL TV has the match in their schedule now. Dresden will also take their camera to Aachen next week so both 2nd matches of the semi series will for sure be broadcasted at least as 1 camera streams.