So, the long Christmas break continues on, and we continue to prepare ourselves for what should be an exciting slutspil. Luckily enough, we had an opportunity over the weekend to take a trip down to Germany to play a practice tournament in Wuppertal. Four teams: Us, Wuppertal, Eltmann from Germany and Halen from Belgium. Each team would play three sets with each other and then the best two teams would play in a final on Sunday while the other two would play a third/fourth place classification match.
While we didn’t make it into the final (Surprisingly!) we definitely got a lot out of the experience. As a team we were able to experiment with a lot of different line-ups, positions and substitutions. Playing against quality opponents it becomes clear very fast which of these experiments were successful and which were not.
There were big swings in a lot of the sets that we played; but, we did manage to play some fairly good volleyball at times. We took a set from Halen in our first match and were one point away from taking another. The next night we took a set from Wuppertal, which turned out to be enough to stop them from making it into the finals. The match against Eltmann didn’t go quite as well, as they seemed to have a gear that they could shift to that we simply could not match. Their opposite must have hit in the high .800’s for the match…
Overall, I think we have to be satisfied with the way that things went. It seems that our play is headed in the right direction. Defensive intensity is picking up and the general team chemistry seems to be very positive. Personally, I’m starting to get back into the swing of things after a long recovery from my shoulder problem. I think the time off for Christmas has helped with the healing quite a bit. Now it is just a matter of working off those extra holiday kilos and letting the legs get used to the regular pounding of everyday training. After all the traveling in the last few weeks, I’ll be glad to just settle back into a more normal routine.
I hope everyone had a good Christmas and is enjoying the EXTRA time off from playing any official matches.
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3 comments:
Welcome back. That was a pretty long break from writing as well.
Almost thought the Gentofte match had killed your enthusiasm...
Maybe I'll see you at the pokalfinale this weekend anyway?
Oh, I was wounded, not dead but close... No, just been traveling around the world and trying to enjoy the Holidays.
Don't know if I can make it through the Pokalfinale but I'll probably end up trying to see some of it. Should be a good match and interesting to see the new Aarhus team.
Hope your Holidays have been good, looking forward to Hvidovre dominating the elite qualification!
Just wanted to hello and grats you on the site. It's nice to fill once working day with a story or two from the world of volley.. :0)
And grats on you good start in the "slutspil" as you call it, it looks to be a close race this yeah - good luck!!
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