Just a quick summary from last night:
We started well, playing solid aggrassive volleyball. The other team also had problems with their serve - quite a few serve mistakes - and didn't really look very strong from the beginning. Putting aside a few VERY questionable referee calls we should have won the first set. After five or six set balls for us and some back and forth at the end we lost 28-30. Afterwards things went downhill with each set getting worse.
In the last two sets we lost some of our agression an they started to work in to their game. No doubt, the team we are playing agaihst is good. Solid ball players with a lot of collective experience. They are mostly czech and slovenian nationals (everyone who complains about foreigners in the danish league should see the way the austrian league is set up - there were no austrians on the court for their team consistently) and they all look like they have side jobs as mercenaries. By the end of the match there was little question on who was the better of the two teams.
We'll make some adjustments and see what we can do tonight. Hopefully I'll have something better to report then...
Good luck to everyone this weekend!
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Immediate Reactions and Unfounded predictions...
I want to start this entry by saying congratulations to Middelfart for not only winning this weekend but for putting a really strong, well run tournament. It was great to see that they made a few adjustments and came out with a much better result than in previous years. The level of play was high and everything ran smoothly and I’m fairly sure that all of the teams participating got exactly what they wanted out of it – a bunch of good volleyball.
With that said, allow me to give you my immediate reactions and some unfounded speculation…
Things haven’t changed much from my team previews. I still think the top four teams are Gentofte, Middelfart, Marienlyst and HIK. With that said, I also think that Gentofte and Middelfart have separated themselves out as the top two teams right now.
Gentofte looks like they have the biggest upside to me, if they continue developing throughout the season they are going to be really tough to beat. The setters are going to have to work hard to find the Brazilian’s attack points because right now it looks like they are somewhat out of sync with each other.
Middelfart was absolutely solid throughout the tournament. They have a deep bench and a full team that can all play at a high level. I think out of everyone they are the sharpest team right now. They don’t make a lot of mistakes and they play a good solid all around game. In order to beat them you have to execute at a high level for an entire match and that is about all you can ask for from a team at this point.
That leaves Us and HIK to try and catch up. We played okay at times in the tournament but our level is far too inconsistent. Something we are going to have to remedy through training and experience. It’s hard to point to one thing that we need to improve on for me, I just think that right now we are not as good as some of the other teams out there.
HIK has all the ingredients to be in the top as well and it was great to see Villadsen back around. They just need to pass the ball better. At the moment their passing is not good enough and without consistent passing they won’t be able to challenge any of the top level teams.
SK Aarhus also put on a fairly strong showing, considering that their team has only been together for about ten days they look pretty solid. I didn’t really get to see them play a whole lot so I can’t say too much more about them.
I’m absolutely excited and thrilled to see that the level of Danish volleyball has been strengthened so much since last year. It is going to make for a really interesting season which will hopefully translate into some renewed enthusiasm for volleyball. No doubt that since I have been in Denmark this is the highest the level has ever been.
I don’t know what the deal is, maybe they didn’t have all of their players or whatever, but the only Swedish team that was any good was Hylte. So the lesson here is that Swedes suck.
And Germans too.
Season start is only one week away for most of the teams in the elite division except for us who will be going to Austria for our top teams cup qualification match. I’m going to try and keep a kind of running journal of the events leading up and including the matches. If there is anything worth mentioning I’ll try to put it up here on the site.
Also, not this weekend because I will be gone and worrying about other things, but next weekend I’m going to start a weekly “tips” column where I will predict the future and tell you who is going to win each match. So if you want to make some money or post your own predictions (with explanations) then check it out.
Good luck to everyone this weekend, cross your fingers for us we need all the help we can get down there.
With that said, allow me to give you my immediate reactions and some unfounded speculation…
Things haven’t changed much from my team previews. I still think the top four teams are Gentofte, Middelfart, Marienlyst and HIK. With that said, I also think that Gentofte and Middelfart have separated themselves out as the top two teams right now.
Gentofte looks like they have the biggest upside to me, if they continue developing throughout the season they are going to be really tough to beat. The setters are going to have to work hard to find the Brazilian’s attack points because right now it looks like they are somewhat out of sync with each other.
Middelfart was absolutely solid throughout the tournament. They have a deep bench and a full team that can all play at a high level. I think out of everyone they are the sharpest team right now. They don’t make a lot of mistakes and they play a good solid all around game. In order to beat them you have to execute at a high level for an entire match and that is about all you can ask for from a team at this point.
That leaves Us and HIK to try and catch up. We played okay at times in the tournament but our level is far too inconsistent. Something we are going to have to remedy through training and experience. It’s hard to point to one thing that we need to improve on for me, I just think that right now we are not as good as some of the other teams out there.
HIK has all the ingredients to be in the top as well and it was great to see Villadsen back around. They just need to pass the ball better. At the moment their passing is not good enough and without consistent passing they won’t be able to challenge any of the top level teams.
SK Aarhus also put on a fairly strong showing, considering that their team has only been together for about ten days they look pretty solid. I didn’t really get to see them play a whole lot so I can’t say too much more about them.
I’m absolutely excited and thrilled to see that the level of Danish volleyball has been strengthened so much since last year. It is going to make for a really interesting season which will hopefully translate into some renewed enthusiasm for volleyball. No doubt that since I have been in Denmark this is the highest the level has ever been.
I don’t know what the deal is, maybe they didn’t have all of their players or whatever, but the only Swedish team that was any good was Hylte. So the lesson here is that Swedes suck.
And Germans too.
Season start is only one week away for most of the teams in the elite division except for us who will be going to Austria for our top teams cup qualification match. I’m going to try and keep a kind of running journal of the events leading up and including the matches. If there is anything worth mentioning I’ll try to put it up here on the site.
Also, not this weekend because I will be gone and worrying about other things, but next weekend I’m going to start a weekly “tips” column where I will predict the future and tell you who is going to win each match. So if you want to make some money or post your own predictions (with explanations) then check it out.
Good luck to everyone this weekend, cross your fingers for us we need all the help we can get down there.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Trash Talking
Just a little while back on volleynet there was quite a bit of debate about how much room the players should have to complain/argue/debate/yell in a normal match. I’ve felt strongly about this for a long time so I thought I would take this chance to put my thoughts out there.
First, I want to say that I think trash-talking is not only good for the game of volleyball, but a positive factor in making it entertaining. I can’t even think of how many times I have been sitting, watching a boring game of volleyball, two teams efficiently siding out against each other, very little defense and not much enthusiasm from the crowd or the players themselves. When, all of a sudden someone will make a big stuff block, celebrate facing the opposing team and set off a string of emotions that changes the whole emotional landscape of the game. As a result, players begin diving after every ball, trying to hit each ball as steep and hard as possible (which we all know is the correct way to hit the ball) and yelling as loud as possible. This makes for exciting volleyball.
In the summer, Peter Lyø and I were playing Lunde/Kazsas and getting a beating. We lost the first set 21-12 and things were looking bleak. The volleyball was ugly. Then something subtle happened, in between points (and anyone who has played beach volleyball knows about this) instead of returning the ball exactly to Kim and Lars, Peter rolled it just far enough so that it was on their side of the court, forcing one of them to walk over and pick it up. Soon after, instead of just nicely giving us the ball back Kim kicked it hard into the far corner of center court forcing me to go over and pick it up. Now, this isn’t exactly trash talking, and there is no way to control that kind of behavior, but these two small things (mixed, I’m sure with lots of former experiences between Peter and Kim) were enough to change the entire direction of the match. Defense, Intensity and emotions all poured out on the court and the crowd got to see good volleyball. The match turned out to be one of the best and most fun that I played in last summer and it all started with one little roll of the ball. Maybe the above story is a bit of a stretch, but the point is that, in volleyball, emotion and intensity are major ingredients in making the product watchable. And if those things aren’t there, then a little trash talking can often get the juices flowing…
Of course there are limitations to how far players should be allowed to go. I’m not condoning anarchy where players can run over to the other side and pull each other’s pants off (Although that would be awesome). All I’m asking is that the referees sit on their yellow and red cards a bit more. Instead of giving someone a red card for saying a bad word under their breath with their back turned, we should be saving those cards for something serious.
I can’t really remember when it was that everyone decided that players should not be able to look to the other side of the court and celebrate. I mean really, what does this accomplish? I can understand at the younger levels, we aren’t out to embarrass children, etc… but at the Elite level we are all adults. It doesn’t make sense that after a big stuff block, probably one of the most emotional moments in our sport, we are REQUIRED to turn our backs and look only to our own team. The net’s separation of the court should not include the separation of our emotions. The most fun matches to watch are the ones where both teams are getting after each other. Only two or three years ago, the biggest regular season match of the year was the one between Marienlyst and DHG, not only was it two good teams matching up, it was two teams who had quite a bit of bad blood towards each other.
As fans we are drawn to these types of high intensity games. We want drama on the court, we want blood and we want to be entertained. When two teams are forced to control their emotions and forced to keep everything they do on their own side it makes for a sterile, dispassionate and ultimately boring game. I think we all need to loosen up a bit…bitch.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Italians
Seeing that the Italians just won the European Championships reminded me about our CEV cup matches last year.
One of the main reasons that I came to play in Marienlyst last year was to get the chance to play in a European Cup tournament. I was slightly disappointed at first that we got to host the pool because that meant that we wouldn't get a chance to do some traveling. Seeing foreign gyms in weird out of the way places is exciting for me. I was hoping we would get to play somewhere in Siberia just to see what it would be like...
But, it turned out to be a really good experience for our team. Losing all three matches was not that exciting, except perhaps the loss to the Czech team where Martin Olafsen almost lost his mind, but it definitely helped our team develop. And looking back at the matches, there is no doubt that we could have won two of them. The match against the Italians was a different story altogether...
To this day I honestly don't know what happened in that match. I guess you could say that we were just happy to be there and that all of us gave them too much credit before the match even started. At times it did feel like we were little school children trying to beat the full grown men on the other side of the net. But I really think that most of that loss just had to do with them starting out in a comfortable rhythm and us being unable to break them out of that rhythm. I think the main differences between the teams were the passing - we could not pass their serves, they handled ours as if we were serving underhand - and their middle play. At various points in the match, Andre hit the ball over our middles somewhere in front of the three meter line. There was little we could do about it.
I still haven't tried to watch the tape of that match. I have no particular desire to punish myself by seeing it. However, In some strange way I cherish the memories of that match, as if being pounded by a team from Italy is every volleyball player's rite of passage.
One of the main reasons that I came to play in Marienlyst last year was to get the chance to play in a European Cup tournament. I was slightly disappointed at first that we got to host the pool because that meant that we wouldn't get a chance to do some traveling. Seeing foreign gyms in weird out of the way places is exciting for me. I was hoping we would get to play somewhere in Siberia just to see what it would be like...
But, it turned out to be a really good experience for our team. Losing all three matches was not that exciting, except perhaps the loss to the Czech team where Martin Olafsen almost lost his mind, but it definitely helped our team develop. And looking back at the matches, there is no doubt that we could have won two of them. The match against the Italians was a different story altogether...
To this day I honestly don't know what happened in that match. I guess you could say that we were just happy to be there and that all of us gave them too much credit before the match even started. At times it did feel like we were little school children trying to beat the full grown men on the other side of the net. But I really think that most of that loss just had to do with them starting out in a comfortable rhythm and us being unable to break them out of that rhythm. I think the main differences between the teams were the passing - we could not pass their serves, they handled ours as if we were serving underhand - and their middle play. At various points in the match, Andre hit the ball over our middles somewhere in front of the three meter line. There was little we could do about it.
I still haven't tried to watch the tape of that match. I have no particular desire to punish myself by seeing it. However, In some strange way I cherish the memories of that match, as if being pounded by a team from Italy is every volleyball player's rite of passage.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Team Previews 2005-2006 - The Rest.
Team Previews – The rest.
DHG Odense – Probably the biggest question mark at this point, nobody really knows who they have to play for them, some people are even questioning if they have a team or not. Assuming they do have a team, it is extremely hard to predict where they will end up. DHG seems to find a way to put things together at the last minute so they might end up with a decent team. Anders Hoyer should still be there along with Martin Nielsen so that is at least a start. They’ll need “Mio” to play well as he looks like their only setter and they’ll need Jakob Oppenheim to play well even though he is still fairly young. Of course, you can never rule out some of the older guys stepping in and playing for the first team. As far as I can tell, there are too many question marks surrounding them to consider DHG one of the top teams; however, I’m too nervous to say that they won’t do well considering that they always seem to put something together. So, let’s let them sit here somewhere in the middle.
SK Aarhus – Big losses for them from last year include both setters, Mikkel Simonsen in the middle and Lars Hoppe playing outside. They will also lose the deadly middle/libero flexibility of Jesper Pedersen, and we all know that if you are seriously considering making a run at a title you have to have Jesper P. included somewhere in the action. What they’re left with is a potentially good team with little experience.
Their new Japanese setter is definitely legitimate; he runs a nice offense, plays the middle well, strong in defense and has a fairly solid jump serve. What he lacks is communication with the rest of the team, of course, this will come as the season moves along.
It will also be a year where Sasha and Ole finally get their chance to play consistently, both can play well and are hard workers but are untested playing consistently over a whole season. Brian Nordberg will continue to do well as they will look to him even more for offensive help. Danny Kurulyo (I’ll never spell this correctly) is solid but not going to carry them from what I’ve heard.
All in all it looks to me like SK will be somewhere in the middle. They are too unbalanced in my mind, their passing is still a question and their roster is fairly small at this point, if there are injuries or one of the starters is not playing well they won’t have much to fall back on. I think they will struggle with consistency throughout the season, but they certainly will be dangerous at times. No matter who is playing for them, this team has been to the finals the last two years in a row. It is also worth mentioning that you never really know who will pop up on their roster midway through the season…
Lyngby Volley – It seems that it has been out with the old and in with the new over there in Lyngby. They have said themselves that they will try to be more focused on training and development this year than they have been in the past. I hope this does not mean the end of warm up football! They have also got quite a few people coming into the club this year who can help them tremendously. Add that to their core of veteran players and you have a solid team. Lyngby has always been hard to play against when they are on, the question was always which team would show up. Last year we played them four or five times and each time I think we played against a completely different team. I’d also like to take a second to mention that I think it is too bad that William Menzel has stopped, I’ve always enjoyed playing against him. I also have great respect for all the work that he does for Lyngby and for volleyball in Denmark.
This team will probably be good for a few upsets this year, what they lack in order to be one of the better teams is consistency and, like a lot of other teams in Denmark, a strong setter. Especially if they stop giving themselves the excuses to mess around all the time, this team will be better than expected.
Holte – I don’t have much to say about Holte. I don’t know who they have to play this year, especially since Kristian Bech and a few others decided to go to Gentofte (Watch out for Alex Jacobsen by the way, if you haven’t seen him play before, I think you are in for a treat when you do. He was definitely one of the most fun players to watch play this year on the beach) Holte is going to have a tough time competing with what looks like a strong Danish Elite division this year.
Hvidovre – Honestly, I’ve always thought that this team has underachieved. Playing against them I think to myself that they should at least be challenging for a top six placement but it never seems to happen. Kasper does a good job setting, they have good outsides and their middles, while undersized, do a decent job. I’ve seen that they have a large team this year and are doing some good things, I hope it translates to some more wins for them this year. I think that they don’t really think they can win against the good teams and therefore they handicap themselves but that is just my opinion. If they concentrate on doing the things that they know they can do well then there is a chance that they will be stronger than most people think. However, until they prove that they can do it I have no choice but to leave them somewhere near the bottom.
PVC Lyngby - A bit of a surprise that they made it up to the elite level. There were rumors that they might not even have wanted to be promoted but here they are anyway. I can't pretend to know very much about this team but from what I've heard they are fairly reliant on two guys - Jeppe Brinck and Kristoffer Bergholt (This has nothing to do with this post, but it just reminded me, someone was telling me that they were thinking about naming their child Kristophpher and spelling it with the two ph's instead of ff's, what a ridiculous thing to do...) two guys that have been around for quite a while. I've also heard that possibly some people weren't very satisfied with the way the team was run... So, to me it looks like they are headed towards a tough season especially considering they will be stepping up a level in competition. It may be possible to rely on two outside hitters in the first division but unless they get some help out of the middle and can distribute the ball a bit they are going have trouble against bigger blockers. It will be interesting to see how they fit in amongst the elite teams this year...
DHG Odense – Probably the biggest question mark at this point, nobody really knows who they have to play for them, some people are even questioning if they have a team or not. Assuming they do have a team, it is extremely hard to predict where they will end up. DHG seems to find a way to put things together at the last minute so they might end up with a decent team. Anders Hoyer should still be there along with Martin Nielsen so that is at least a start. They’ll need “Mio” to play well as he looks like their only setter and they’ll need Jakob Oppenheim to play well even though he is still fairly young. Of course, you can never rule out some of the older guys stepping in and playing for the first team. As far as I can tell, there are too many question marks surrounding them to consider DHG one of the top teams; however, I’m too nervous to say that they won’t do well considering that they always seem to put something together. So, let’s let them sit here somewhere in the middle.
SK Aarhus – Big losses for them from last year include both setters, Mikkel Simonsen in the middle and Lars Hoppe playing outside. They will also lose the deadly middle/libero flexibility of Jesper Pedersen, and we all know that if you are seriously considering making a run at a title you have to have Jesper P. included somewhere in the action. What they’re left with is a potentially good team with little experience.
Their new Japanese setter is definitely legitimate; he runs a nice offense, plays the middle well, strong in defense and has a fairly solid jump serve. What he lacks is communication with the rest of the team, of course, this will come as the season moves along.
It will also be a year where Sasha and Ole finally get their chance to play consistently, both can play well and are hard workers but are untested playing consistently over a whole season. Brian Nordberg will continue to do well as they will look to him even more for offensive help. Danny Kurulyo (I’ll never spell this correctly) is solid but not going to carry them from what I’ve heard.
All in all it looks to me like SK will be somewhere in the middle. They are too unbalanced in my mind, their passing is still a question and their roster is fairly small at this point, if there are injuries or one of the starters is not playing well they won’t have much to fall back on. I think they will struggle with consistency throughout the season, but they certainly will be dangerous at times. No matter who is playing for them, this team has been to the finals the last two years in a row. It is also worth mentioning that you never really know who will pop up on their roster midway through the season…
Lyngby Volley – It seems that it has been out with the old and in with the new over there in Lyngby. They have said themselves that they will try to be more focused on training and development this year than they have been in the past. I hope this does not mean the end of warm up football! They have also got quite a few people coming into the club this year who can help them tremendously. Add that to their core of veteran players and you have a solid team. Lyngby has always been hard to play against when they are on, the question was always which team would show up. Last year we played them four or five times and each time I think we played against a completely different team. I’d also like to take a second to mention that I think it is too bad that William Menzel has stopped, I’ve always enjoyed playing against him. I also have great respect for all the work that he does for Lyngby and for volleyball in Denmark.
This team will probably be good for a few upsets this year, what they lack in order to be one of the better teams is consistency and, like a lot of other teams in Denmark, a strong setter. Especially if they stop giving themselves the excuses to mess around all the time, this team will be better than expected.
Holte – I don’t have much to say about Holte. I don’t know who they have to play this year, especially since Kristian Bech and a few others decided to go to Gentofte (Watch out for Alex Jacobsen by the way, if you haven’t seen him play before, I think you are in for a treat when you do. He was definitely one of the most fun players to watch play this year on the beach) Holte is going to have a tough time competing with what looks like a strong Danish Elite division this year.
Hvidovre – Honestly, I’ve always thought that this team has underachieved. Playing against them I think to myself that they should at least be challenging for a top six placement but it never seems to happen. Kasper does a good job setting, they have good outsides and their middles, while undersized, do a decent job. I’ve seen that they have a large team this year and are doing some good things, I hope it translates to some more wins for them this year. I think that they don’t really think they can win against the good teams and therefore they handicap themselves but that is just my opinion. If they concentrate on doing the things that they know they can do well then there is a chance that they will be stronger than most people think. However, until they prove that they can do it I have no choice but to leave them somewhere near the bottom.
PVC Lyngby - A bit of a surprise that they made it up to the elite level. There were rumors that they might not even have wanted to be promoted but here they are anyway. I can't pretend to know very much about this team but from what I've heard they are fairly reliant on two guys - Jeppe Brinck and Kristoffer Bergholt (This has nothing to do with this post, but it just reminded me, someone was telling me that they were thinking about naming their child Kristophpher and spelling it with the two ph's instead of ff's, what a ridiculous thing to do...) two guys that have been around for quite a while. I've also heard that possibly some people weren't very satisfied with the way the team was run... So, to me it looks like they are headed towards a tough season especially considering they will be stepping up a level in competition. It may be possible to rely on two outside hitters in the first division but unless they get some help out of the middle and can distribute the ball a bit they are going have trouble against bigger blockers. It will be interesting to see how they fit in amongst the elite teams this year...
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Team Previews 2005-2006
Marienlyst -– Our biggest obstacle has obviously been the loss of two top talents in Mads Ditlevsen and Peter Lyck, as well as our coach from last year - Jens Larsen. Well, out with the old and in with the new.
With Stewart McGrenary already here and Nathan Roberts on his way it looks, if not promising, then solid, for our team this year. Jesper Hansen and BT are as solid as always, which makes us, in my mind, the best passing team in the league. We'’ve still got depth off of the bench: Lasse Westergaard gets better every year and could easily start for a lot of teams in the league, Toke is doing lots of good things in practice both in the middle and on the outside, and Paw is ready to finally get his chance to start for us as soon as he is healthy again. All in all, the team has a lot of the same characteristics of our team from last year. The big question is whether it is enough considering that nearly each team in the league has improved.
HIK Aalborg -- In my mind, the biggest disappointment from last year. I don’t know what happened at the end of the year but they had the talent to be in the finals. Of course there was some questionable officiating at the end of that semi-final against SK (eh, Villa?) but they really shouldn'’t have been in that situation to begin with. The questions surrounding their team this year are: After dying out late in the season the past couple of years, will they be able to sustain their high level of play throughout an entire season? Will Ricky Ziegler, their new American setter, be enough to put them over the top?
I think their main problem this year is going to be replacing the intensity and the passing that Jesper Villadsen gave them last year. It'’s also going to be hard to replace Jesper Madsen in the libero spot.
They've been smart with both Mikkel and Jeppe, limiting their time on the court here in the pre-season so that they are ready for when it is important. Like, the first match of the Pokal for example...…
Gentofte -– This may be the year that Gentofte brings a title back to Copenhagen. With the new players that are coming in and the excellent system that is already in place I think that they have to be considered one of the favorites to win the title. I don’t have any personal experience with him but I have great respect for Peter Borglund and his attitude towards training.
Their biggest problems last year were that it took so long for Lasse Toft to emerge as a quality opposite hitter to give them a presence out of the back row and that they were relatively undersized in the middle. Both of these problems have been solved. They now have an abundance of outside hitters that are pretty much interchangeable. I look forward to seeing the Brazilian, there isn'’t much doubt that he is a top shelf player but how good he is remains to be seen. They’ve also picked up Mads Toubro and Kristian Bech to help out in the middle, a big improvement on last year.
Questions remain: Who will play libero? They've had a kind of rotating libero system the last few years that hasn'’t really worked. I'’ve even seen them play without a libero. This will have to be resolved before they can take their place as one of the elite teams. Also, do they have the required experience to make a run at the title? I know a lot of their guys have been around for quite a long time but I don'’t know how many titles they have won, especially in recent years.
If they can jell quickly and resolve their libero issues, this team will be strong with all the necessary components to win a championship.
Middelfart -– This is the buzz team of the off-season. They have made the most moves, showed the most ambition and been generally the most impressive team during the summer. As opposed to last year when they made some questionable signings they have brought in two quality Canadian players and a number of key Danish players, as well as Chad Grimm to coach.
Big for them will be the arrival of Mikkel Simonsen who will give them extremely solid play in the middle as well as a lot of important leadership. It also won’t hurt to have Lars Hoppe and Jakob Funch around either. I've met both of the Canadians and they seem like good quality guys. At least a class better than Warrren "I hurt my knee by stumbling drunkenly into an open sewer hole" Jarred. This team is a definite favorite to win a title.
The questions: They are still completely untested. Chad is a good friend of mine and I have no doubts that he will be a good coach, but it is still his first year in a relatively new situation. On average this is still a very young team, not many guys with a lot of championship experience. Especially their setters. Both have the talent to lead their team but neither has proven yet that they can do it over a whole season. It will be interesting to see how this team comes together and who emerges as their leaders in crunch time. No doubt this team has the talent to go all the way, but with that talent comes quite a bit of expectation and pressure...
With Stewart McGrenary already here and Nathan Roberts on his way it looks, if not promising, then solid, for our team this year. Jesper Hansen and BT are as solid as always, which makes us, in my mind, the best passing team in the league. We'’ve still got depth off of the bench: Lasse Westergaard gets better every year and could easily start for a lot of teams in the league, Toke is doing lots of good things in practice both in the middle and on the outside, and Paw is ready to finally get his chance to start for us as soon as he is healthy again. All in all, the team has a lot of the same characteristics of our team from last year. The big question is whether it is enough considering that nearly each team in the league has improved.
HIK Aalborg -- In my mind, the biggest disappointment from last year. I don’t know what happened at the end of the year but they had the talent to be in the finals. Of course there was some questionable officiating at the end of that semi-final against SK (eh, Villa?) but they really shouldn'’t have been in that situation to begin with. The questions surrounding their team this year are: After dying out late in the season the past couple of years, will they be able to sustain their high level of play throughout an entire season? Will Ricky Ziegler, their new American setter, be enough to put them over the top?
I think their main problem this year is going to be replacing the intensity and the passing that Jesper Villadsen gave them last year. It'’s also going to be hard to replace Jesper Madsen in the libero spot.
They've been smart with both Mikkel and Jeppe, limiting their time on the court here in the pre-season so that they are ready for when it is important. Like, the first match of the Pokal for example...…
Gentofte -– This may be the year that Gentofte brings a title back to Copenhagen. With the new players that are coming in and the excellent system that is already in place I think that they have to be considered one of the favorites to win the title. I don’t have any personal experience with him but I have great respect for Peter Borglund and his attitude towards training.
Their biggest problems last year were that it took so long for Lasse Toft to emerge as a quality opposite hitter to give them a presence out of the back row and that they were relatively undersized in the middle. Both of these problems have been solved. They now have an abundance of outside hitters that are pretty much interchangeable. I look forward to seeing the Brazilian, there isn'’t much doubt that he is a top shelf player but how good he is remains to be seen. They’ve also picked up Mads Toubro and Kristian Bech to help out in the middle, a big improvement on last year.
Questions remain: Who will play libero? They've had a kind of rotating libero system the last few years that hasn'’t really worked. I'’ve even seen them play without a libero. This will have to be resolved before they can take their place as one of the elite teams. Also, do they have the required experience to make a run at the title? I know a lot of their guys have been around for quite a long time but I don'’t know how many titles they have won, especially in recent years.
If they can jell quickly and resolve their libero issues, this team will be strong with all the necessary components to win a championship.
Middelfart -– This is the buzz team of the off-season. They have made the most moves, showed the most ambition and been generally the most impressive team during the summer. As opposed to last year when they made some questionable signings they have brought in two quality Canadian players and a number of key Danish players, as well as Chad Grimm to coach.
Big for them will be the arrival of Mikkel Simonsen who will give them extremely solid play in the middle as well as a lot of important leadership. It also won’t hurt to have Lars Hoppe and Jakob Funch around either. I've met both of the Canadians and they seem like good quality guys. At least a class better than Warrren "I hurt my knee by stumbling drunkenly into an open sewer hole" Jarred. This team is a definite favorite to win a title.
The questions: They are still completely untested. Chad is a good friend of mine and I have no doubts that he will be a good coach, but it is still his first year in a relatively new situation. On average this is still a very young team, not many guys with a lot of championship experience. Especially their setters. Both have the talent to lead their team but neither has proven yet that they can do it over a whole season. It will be interesting to see how this team comes together and who emerges as their leaders in crunch time. No doubt this team has the talent to go all the way, but with that talent comes quite a bit of expectation and pressure...
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Danish and such...
I just wanted to mention that if anyone has comments or anything else they want to add to the site please feel free to write or respond in Danish. Of course it is great if anyone wants to work on their english writing skills, but I can't imagine that anyone outside of Denmark is going to be reading this blog (if anyone reads it at all...) so fire away. My danish reading skills are pretty good so it shouldn't be a problem, my danish writing skills however are not particularly sharp...
Quick Training Tournament in Aalborg
This weekend we were in Aalborg to play against Sk Aarhus and Aalborg. Originally it was just supposed to be against Aalborg but apparently Sk Aarhus asked if they could join us and unfortunately they were accepted. I have no problem with Aarhus, and I love all the guys that are still there from when I played there, but the team they brought this weekend was barely a team. There were maybe three or four guys who have elite division experience and the rest were just thrown together in what seemed like the last second.
Anyways, we played SK first and it wasn't much of a match. I think they might have gotten 15 or 16 points in one of the sets. I will say that their new Japanese setter is good though. Lots of energy and lots of noise - fun to watch. Unfortunately he didn't have a whole lot of good passing to work with... I'm sure they will be alot better once the other guys are around (Brian when he is healthy again, Sasha who deserved more of a chance to play last year in my opinion, Danny Kurulyo (sp?) who played with Middelfart last year, and knowing Thorkild, a few more) and ready to play, but at the moment I would not include SK as a team with a chance to win a medal.
Aalborg looks fairly promising, they played against us without Jeppe or Mikkel and still played well. Thomas Bach is playing extremely well at the moment but I still have some reservations about their passing. I think it is going to be hard for them to transition from Jesper Villadsen and Jesper Madsen being their main passers to what they have this year. The new setter is also good though, athletic and solid, hopefully he lasts a whole season for them... They definitey will be a team to reckon with as always this year as long as their passing holds up.
As far as our team goes, I think we played ok but it is early and of course there is a lot of room for improvement. Stewart has been solid so far and I hope he continues to be that way, it's fun to have such a slimy hitter on our team, I don't think I have ever played with someone like that before. We'll have to keep working hard with our blocking and defense, but Jesper Hansen and BT continue to do things well as always. At the moment we need our outside hitters to be ready because we only have three. As soon as Nathan comes from Australia we should be in much better shape for training and in games. Until then, I hope that we can continue to improve as we look forward to the Middelfart tournament and to our Top Teams Cup matches in Austria.
Match Scores:
SK Aarhus - Marienlyst: 0:3
HIK - Marienlyst: 1-3
Anyways, we played SK first and it wasn't much of a match. I think they might have gotten 15 or 16 points in one of the sets. I will say that their new Japanese setter is good though. Lots of energy and lots of noise - fun to watch. Unfortunately he didn't have a whole lot of good passing to work with... I'm sure they will be alot better once the other guys are around (Brian when he is healthy again, Sasha who deserved more of a chance to play last year in my opinion, Danny Kurulyo (sp?) who played with Middelfart last year, and knowing Thorkild, a few more) and ready to play, but at the moment I would not include SK as a team with a chance to win a medal.
Aalborg looks fairly promising, they played against us without Jeppe or Mikkel and still played well. Thomas Bach is playing extremely well at the moment but I still have some reservations about their passing. I think it is going to be hard for them to transition from Jesper Villadsen and Jesper Madsen being their main passers to what they have this year. The new setter is also good though, athletic and solid, hopefully he lasts a whole season for them... They definitey will be a team to reckon with as always this year as long as their passing holds up.
As far as our team goes, I think we played ok but it is early and of course there is a lot of room for improvement. Stewart has been solid so far and I hope he continues to be that way, it's fun to have such a slimy hitter on our team, I don't think I have ever played with someone like that before. We'll have to keep working hard with our blocking and defense, but Jesper Hansen and BT continue to do things well as always. At the moment we need our outside hitters to be ready because we only have three. As soon as Nathan comes from Australia we should be in much better shape for training and in games. Until then, I hope that we can continue to improve as we look forward to the Middelfart tournament and to our Top Teams Cup matches in Austria.
Match Scores:
SK Aarhus - Marienlyst: 0:3
HIK - Marienlyst: 1-3
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