Posts by StefanS

    Our work with prospects is much worse than in Italy, Turkey, Russia and even Poland and Serbia. Just introducing a foreigner limit won't resolve this issue, but weaken the league. This is no near term solution - federation and clubs have to work hard to improve the system from the base first. Three federal camps together with the national one are a joke, we need at least twice of those and a better coverage overall in area and age groups.

    The correct tree for the playoffs is:


    Schwerin - Vilsbiburg

    Potsdam - Suhl


    Dresden - Wiesbaden

    Stuttgart - Münster


    Because this time no regrouping of matches will take place, if a lower ranked team upsets a higher ranked team, this is now possible to clarify before the playoffs start.


    And while Schwerin and Stuttgart should have not too much trouble to get to the semis, IMHO Dresden-Wiesbaden might even be more balanced as Potsdam-Suhl, but anyway, these are the more competetive quarters anyway and should be aired therefore.

    The work with young players is such feeble, partly because of largely not helpful federation DVV, that we can get clearly too few first league capable players out of it. 2. Pro has Italy like strict rules for German players and therefore strong limits on foreigners, but this can help only a bit now, doesn't resolve the general lack of enough decent German players.

    In the local newspaper “inSüdthüringen” there is an article today reporting that the Bundesliga teams are not that happy with the intermediate round, which is completely understandable from my point of view. That's why the game mode should be put to the test. Unfortunately the article is behind a paywall so I can't read the whole article.

    That was only introduced to keep the number of home matches the same, to guarantee the ticket selling for these. As the league gets back to a reasonable size, this will vanish.

    Small improvement: Nawaro Straubing is currently in 3rd place and not TV Dingolfing. TV Dingolfing is in 4th place, but of course they have one game less from Nawaro Straubing and could therefore overtake the team.


    But you have to say either way that things are extremely tight in the league both at the top and bottom, with the positive exception of Schwarz-Weiß Erfurt and the negative exception of SSC Freisen. For example, second place and seventh place are separated by just seven points. And it's even tighter since today at the bottom, with only five points between eighth place and twelfth place, the first relegation spot. So you have to say that the six to four match days (teams have played different numbers of games) can still be really exciting.

    I am always using the point per match ratio due to the largely unbalanced match numbers and in this measure Dingolfing is better than Straubing.


    We have now two to three groups of teams: champion Erfurt is followed by six teams, than there is an huge gap and six teams (including VCO Dresden, not participating in relegation) are trailing, none of them can be sure to stay in the league for now. Freisen seems to be a lost case, but Flacht has a small, but real chance to overtake Borken, and as mentioned even the teams before can't be sure for now.

    Erfurt became champion 🏆 of second league pro four rounds before end of the season and has either to return to the first league or pay money to the league VBL. Second and third team are now Köln/Cologne and Dingolfing, it's not clear yet, if any of those three wants really a first league license, as usual it's a financially demanding task for them. Others could apply too by the way...

    That was no good match by Stuttgart, but they had some physical issues before this match it seems. From now on the five top teams play essentially the same schedule and this will reveal the truth at the end. A championship final series Schwerin vs. Stuttgart is the most likely anyway.

    In an article from Mannheimer Morgens, which is unfortunately behind a pay wall, the future of the DVV Cup final is discussed a little. The SAP Arena in Mannheim will be the host of the cup final until next season. It is currently not known what will happen after the season. According to this article, there is a tendency for the cup final to continue to take place in Mannheim in its current form. There will also be discussions about bringing the final forward to Saturday.


    Link: Wie die Zukunft des DVV-Pokalfinals in der Mannheimer SAP Arena aussieht


    There are only a few suitable halls in Germany for this event, and with this one DVV fared very well. Therefore I guess they will stick to it.

    I am very disappointed at Scandicci. They got Zhu, Herbort, Carol, Maja, Washington and Antropova. That’s a very expensive line up. Playing at home, I have expected at least they would get to the golden set. What a mess up!! Total disappointment for Scandicci!!! Good jab Ezacibasi!!


    I have to say, it’s the same story for a team like Stuttgart. They probably prepared for this since when they learned that they were going to play against Fenerbahce and it was the most important game of the season for them and yet they hardly showed up on the first two sets. I thought their Opp been rested and all, they would play harder from the get go. I wasn’t expecting that they were going to win the game against FB, but I was expecting they would be more competitive!


    It was expected that Imoco would win against VB. VB trio of Frantti, Gabi, and JT are not on the same level as Plummer, Kelsey, and Haak. On top of that when you add Zahra who played terribly. As I said before they are in rebuilding phase at the moment. However, even with that line up, VB could have a different outcome had they played against any other team then Imoco.

    Don't expect from Stuttgart things, they can't deliver. They were stressed much too by their competitive home league and especially Rivers had to play more than it was well suitable for her. And of course Fenerbahce hired due to a three to four times higher budget stronger players as Stuttgart can afford, who usually can perform longer on high level, not only Melissa Vargas, who is lightyears beyond what a German team can financially afford, this is valid for all (and not only) starters in Fenerbahce. The home match was the best, Stuttgart can do against such a top team, you can't expect, that they play every time at that above-the-average level.

    Money don't play, they had chance, but hard true is that they played 2 terrible sets

    Stuttgart was forced to play too many hard matches now, visible in the unnecessary defeat because of error prone play against Dresden in German league before. Compared to that it was easy living for Fenerbahe against Sariyer at the weekend.

    This two to zero set lead should suffice for Chieri to get to the final, because they need just one set from the next 4 possible including Tie-Break and Golden Set.