Germany - VBL 1. Bundesliga 2016/17

I just wonder which positions the Rolfzens twins would play in Dresdner. USA colony growning in Dresden!

This is a bit strange IMHO. I know they have great team spirit, they both changed positions because of team needs: they started both as wing spiker, but Amber moved to the middle and Kadie to right side, in order to have Foecke as wing spiker without passing tasks, which was the key for their NCAA title with Nebraska.

Quote from SHAME

This is a bit strange IMHO. I know they have great team spirit, they both changed positions because of team needs: they started both as wing spiker, but Amber moved to the middle and Kadie to right side, in order to have Foecke as wing spiker without passing tasks, which was the key for their NCAA title with Nebraska.

I agree. While it is said that both athletes can play any front line position, I wonder about transferring Amber into a position she has not recently played and in the limited role of backing up McMahon, essentially only coming in on the double sub situation.

Perhaps a clue is in Waibl's statement, "This opens up further tactical possibilities."

At the risk of reading too much into this, I wonder if this means that despite the official announcement we might see either of the transferred players in a different role as circumstances dictate?

But Dresden does not have budget to sign really world class players? I mean, they are playing in the Champions League and they should be able to build a stronger team, The German league is stronger than in Swiss and still Volero can build a really strong team, which means Dresden should be able to do the same. Even teams in China and Japan from the 2nd division are able to sign names like Fe Garay, Calderon and Furst for example.

Quote from SHAME

This is a bit strange IMHO. I know they have great team spirit, they both changed positions because of team needs: they started both as wing spiker, but Amber moved to the middle and Kadie to right side, in order to have Foecke as wing spiker without passing tasks, which was the key for their NCAA title with Nebraska.

I think if they stay in Dresden next Season Amber will return to Middle.

Or maybe they just needed Kadie, but they're cheap players and hired both of them for next season.

Quote from rbdfabio

But Dresden does not have budget to sign really world class players? I mean, they are playing in the Champions League and they should be able to build a stronger team, The German league is stronger than in Swiss and still Volero can build a really strong team, which means Dresden should be able to do the same. Even teams in China and Japan from the 2nd division are able to sign names like Fe Garay, Calderon and Furst for example.

Volero ZÜRICH has at least two times the budget of Dresden and has a well working connection to some other European clubs, so they can get players sometimes, they couldn't afford regularly to pay. Compared to Bundesliga this is an entire other world... but Dresden has high costs for a very professional grade, CL participating (and that way very expensive thing) similar to Volero, so there is considerably less than the half of salaries available for players. When for example opposite Kristina Mikhailenko left at end of last season Dresden to switch to a mid-class Turkey superleague team, which has much less money than the big clubs from Istanbul, she immediately got three times the salary there as in Dresden.

And they can tell you (Schwerin too), that especially playing CL results in rich clubs getting attention and interest in their best players - if those from Turkey, Italy or even Poland make offers, even Dresden and Schwerin often give up any attempt to keep players - they have financially no chance to do so and will lose badly. Not to speak of Stuttgart or even other teams of the league with even less budget.

And once more: regarding interest of sponsors there is a clear hierarchy in Germany: 1. soccer (men) first league 2. soccer (men) second league 3. soccer (men) third leage 4. handball men first league 5. basketball men first league 6. icehockey DEL 7. soccer (women) first league 8. handball (women) first league 9. shared volleyball men and women.

How you acquire sponsors if you are so much down against the teams sports competetors? This is very difficult and also unfair, because womens volleyball has more live spectators than womens soccer and womens basketball and handball!

Quote from Matthias

In Germany there is not much money for volleyball, and Dresden lost a big sponsor after last season so their budget is smaller than in the previous years.

To make that more clear!

Thinking of big German sonsors...:

Soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, ......, soccer, soccer, soccer, ..., soccer, winter sports, soccer, soccer, soccer, ... , soccer, handball, soccer, ..., nothing, nothing, nothing, ..., ..., ..., volleyball...

It is a big problem for most of the other sports in Germany, too.
The same thinking is known from the TV stations.

Ok, in other countries of Europe it is similar. But there are some countries as Turkey, Aserbaidschan, Poland, Italy and Russia where volleyball is on the level of handball here in Germany. These countries have the best teams and there are only some "gallic villages" around in the other european countries as Zürich (in the past also Cannes perhaps).

Tomorrow the most interesting match is supposed to be in Vilsbiburg, where leader Schwerin has to play after their home defeat against Wiesbaden. The other four matches feature clear favorites...

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Best players after half season

Interesting that in the category Best Blocker not one player from MTV Stuttgart is under the Top Ten. I wonder why.

Quote from Matthias

Nia Grant is their best ranked blocker on 12th place. In the team rankings, Stuttgart is on 5th place in terms of total block points, so not really bad overall. They just don't have one or two outstanding blockers, and I think their blocking scheme also intends to force the opponent to hit towards where Buakaew is waiting in defense instead of trying to go for kill blocks all the time.

By the way, even though Potsdam has the two highest ranked blockers in the player ranking, they are only 3rd in the team ranking of blocks behind Wiesbaden and Dresden.

Aditionally this season Stuttgart has a very balanced team without big quality differences especially also in blocking, where 2 of 3 are playing every time, often changing, so they can't sum up that much points every one of them.

Enjoyed myself watching the VBL tonight. Stuttgart getting a though win against LBA without Daalderop. But even more surprising: Schweriner losing to Vilsbiburg and dropping 3 points. They could'nt hold on to a 5-point lead (11-16) in the fourth and failed to convert 4? setpoints in the end ( ) which resulted in a 3-1 loss. Stuttgart back on top, yes!

Quote from Marcus

Enjoyed myself watching the VBL tonight. Stuttgart getting a though win against LBA without Daalderop. But even more surprising: Schweriner losing to Vilsbiburg and dropping 3 points. They could'nt hold on to a 5-point lead (11-16) in the fourth and failed to convert 4? setpoints in the end ( ) which resulted in a 3-1 loss. Stuttgart back on top, yes!

Yes I see "my" team now on top, coming as a surprise after the inacceptable 0 point defeat in Potsdam (but hey, Schwerin suffered the same fate today in Vilsbiburg) and the key defeat at home against Schwerin, which should also not happen when you want to win the championship seriously - last season Stuttgart lost just two matches at home altogether (all three competitions combined), and this was only against superiour Russian teams (Kazan and Krasnodar) and never against a league opponent. - The second half of the season is much more in favour of Schwerin by the way, they have nearly all strong opponents at home and Stuttgart nearly all on the road, so Schwerins chances to get the important top spot after league round are still good. Remember last final series, when Dresden and Stuttgart won all their home matches, so the top spot of Dresden after league round ultimately decided the championship by home advantage for them.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Schwerin’s loss today really opens up the table. The three top teams each have two losses, are separated by three just points, and have one more match against each other.

Dresden v. Stuttgart: Jan. 7
Schwerin v. Dresden: Feb. 5
Schwerin v. Stuttgart: Feb. 18

At the moment each team now has it within their control to win the regular season without needing an upset of another team. With Schwerin having their two matches at home and Stuttgart having two on the road, I guess one might give a slight edge to Schwerin, assuming they return to form after two losses in a row.

This could be very exciting!