Germany - VBL 1. Bundesliga 2018/2019

    Quote from StefanS

    Volleyball magazine reports, that Irina Kemmsies retires in her young age from professional volleyball - NT head coach Felix Koslowski will try her to get back after one year break into this business anyway. Her retirement will respective would be a big loss for German volleyball, because there are not too many decent setters (safe for other positions, where we have also not that many options...)

    She was indeed a good prospect! What's the reason that youngsters quit volleyball at such early age? First Silge and now Kemmsies:teach:

    Quote from serdar

    She was indeed a good prospect! What's the reason that youngsters quit volleyball at such early age? First Silge and now Kemmsies:teach:

    Both mentions in the magazine didn't refer to a reason, so I think, that the usual factors apply: no good perspective (after leaving Wiesbaden she didn't make any new, interesting contract), relatively low income compared to the possibilites, they have studying and working regularly, the relatively high load... (they have to care for later income anyway, because nearly no one can manage to make enough money opposed to male soccer players).

    Quote from StefanS

    Volleyball magazine reports, that Irina Kemmsies retires in her young age from professional volleyball - NT head coach Felix Koslowski will try her to get back after one year break into this business anyway. Her retirement will respective would be a big loss for German volleyball, because there are not too many decent setters (safe for other positions, where we have also not that many options...).

    It's not really a surprise after the last months

    Quote from StefanS

    Both mentions in the magazine didn't refer to a reason, so I think, that the usual factors apply: no good perspective (after leaving Wiesbaden she didn't make any new, interesting contract), relatively low income compared to the possibilites, they have studying and working regularly, the relatively high load... (they have to care for later income anyway, because nearly no one can manage to make enough money opposed to male soccer players).


    I heard she got her studies and pro volleyball under one roof. The same as Wiebke Silge

    I watched yesterday the friendly Stuttgart vs. Mulhouse, and as often this early time, reliably is not at best on both sides now. Considering the many (trial) changes and missing three players by Stuttgart (Wilhyte, Poll and Kästner) and that Roosa Keskelo didn't play (Cesar did), because being here for just a few days now, lacking common training sessions therefore, this was overall not bad, leading 2:0 in sets and finally winning the tie-break after one of the "patented" long sets (30:32) as well as Mulhouse seems better to me than last season, when they were third in France behind Béziers and Cannes. - It will be interesting to see, how this will work out both in Germany and France, the last now joined by Volero Le Cannet...

    Injury worries even before the start of the season:


    In Erfurt, their top transfer Noora Kosonen suffered ACL tear and is done for the season. They're currently checking options for signing a replacement.


    In Schwerin, Marie Schölzel's ankle injury is quite serious. The first doctor who examined her in the hospital even said she can't play volleyball anymore at all, but eventually it's not that bad. She has torn ligaments and also damage to the bone, so she needs to wear a special "shoe" (such a big plastic thing) for 6 weeks and then slowly needs to rehab. I don't expect her to be back on court before January.

    Quote from Matthias

    And Dresden joins the list: Piia Korhonen still hasn't recovered from the ankle injury she suffered in EL F4 (that's almost 4 months ago :what:) and is going to miss the beginning of the season at least.

    The load for the players is too high, I think: playing for clubs and NTs both eliminates essentially any time of rest.

    Some days ago there was a short TV report about Aachen's pre-season and there also were some snippets of training footage, and Ivona Svobodnikova is practising with the team. No word about a possible transfer nor any hint on social media so far, so I just state it as it is. I didn't see Krista DeGeest in the video, but then it was impossible to spot all players in the background exactly; but Lisa Gründing and Madi Farrell were there, so unless anything happened to DeGeest there'd be no need for Aachen to sign another MB. Maybe Svobodnikova just helps in practise in order to stay in shape...

    Some clarification regarding Stuttgarts libero Roosa Koskelo (FIN): they measured anomal blood pressure in the first place, but obviously this was not recognized as true issue later on respective corrected, therefore she joined the team as planned.

    Preview of German volleyball magazine: there is no clear, undisputed championship favourite this season, it seems, that most think, that Schwerin, Stuttgart and Dresden are essentially all on equal height. Regarding budgets some clubs made some progress, others not, the leaders are:


    Schwerin 1.85 million Euro

    Dresden 1.8 million Euro


    Stuttgart 1.4 million Euro with an option of additionally 0.1 million Euro when getting to CL pool stage


    Wiesbaden 1.2 million Euro

    Münster 1.2 million Euro (as for Schwerin, Dresden and Stuttgart, there is money for the academy included)


    Vilsbiburg 1.0 million Euro


    all others have less than one million Euro, it seems, for example Erfurt as one with the lowest budget has just short of 0.6 million Euro available.


    The formal fight against downgrading to second league (this will not happen nearly for sure, safe for an eventual lack of money to proceed in the first league) is assumed to be among newbies Straubing (which tried already some years ago, but went down primarily for lack of financial support) and the both Thuringia teams Suhl and Erfurt. This is unlikely to happen due to results, because Offenburg seems to be the only team seriously interested in second league to apply additionally for a first league license in the next season, and that would made just 11+1 = 12 professional teams (VCO Berlin is not counting), so the desired league size would be there without the need of any downgrading of first league teams again...


    Personally speaking, I think that Schwerin and Dresden are underestimating Stuttgart once more, but money is not the only important ingredient of success, Stuttgart seems to be the most attractive location for (international) players of the top three (in contrast this seems to be Schwerin for national players), which compensates for financial shortcomings. Especially I have doubts, that Radosova and the Spaniard Segura are that helpful OHs for Dresden as there is hoped. But we will see in the months coming, how it works out; be aware, that the first matches will tell us near nothing because of the very late and long WCh induced poor preparation of the three strongest teams especially...

    The fight for the placed 4 and 5 will be especially interesting like it was the last years already, there are many teams aiming for these places: Wiesbaden, Aachen, Potsdam, Münster, Vilsbiburg. And it is really hard to tell, how they will be placed at the end of this season.