A few quick comments on my last post:
I don't really know what you can do about a generation of volleyball players that stop playing. It takes time to build up the ranks of players again. In 2002, when I came to Denmark, there were several teams built around "older" players that all decided to stop within the next couple of years. No matter what, you are going to feel the effects of 20-25 good, experienced players stopping at about the same time. And that's what happened in the last few years.
The difference between "reliance on" foreign players and "supplementing" a roster with them is huge. I've always felt that the sweet spot for foreigners is around 2-4 all depending on the team you can surround them with. The idea, that should be apparent to everyone by now, is to have a self-sufficient roster made up of homegrown (danish) talent that can be augmented by some foreign talent. Basically, it should be a matter of luxury, not necessary, spending. Said another way, clubs should be taking on foreign players to make them better not just to fill spaces that are empty.
Now I'm just whipping stuff off the top of my head, but maybe it should be a requirement for teams to have an equal amount of junior players as foreigners on their teams...
As one of the first teams to bring foreigners into the league, Aarhus has actually done a really good job of starting to work with younger talent. At least their elite team is carrying more and more inexperienced/young Danish players.
While we're on the subject of the youth, I have to ask the question - why do I know nothing about youth players in Denmark? I've never seen a youth match or tournament, if they come to watch our games I've never spoken with any of them, I see KIDS volley players all the time at the club but other than that I have no connection whatsoever to the youth players in Denmark. Where do they play? When do they play? Another quick thought: Why don't we let the youth players play some sort of finals on the same floor as the real Danish Championship finals? It could happen a couple of hours before the senior finals or right afterward.
Anyways, I know almost nothing about the youth at this point. I hope that changes soon.
Middelfart was a bit of a disappointment as far as the level of play. Most teams are still in a bit of chaos at this time of year, but this year seemed a bit worse than normal.
I thought HIK looked better than I thought they would, they're roster is full and they've got a bunch of new faces, which is a really good thing. A lot of the younger guys looked raw, but they definitely had potential. They do have some question marks at certain important positions though, it will be interesting to see how they develop as the season moves along.
Aarhus looks like they will put together a strong team eventually. I'm not sure that they're current crop of foreigners can carry the team the way they did last year though. It looks a little bit more like quantity than quality at this point. I think the setter looks good and they still have a lot of guys that have been around for a long time mixed with some solid youth so they should be formidable by mid-season. But during the tournament they didn't exactly have everything working perfectly.
ASV got another foreigner who looks promising. He's a big middle and you can't really go wrong with a big middle at this point. Obviously, as newcomers to the Elite division, they'll struggle while they get used to the new level of play. They'll be good for some upsets though as the season progresses.
Middelfart was missing one of their middles and a libero and had almost no one on the bench so it is hard to say what they'll look like by season's end. I think they'll be better than they showed at the tournament but it might be a stretch at this point to say that they are medal contenders. I like Jarryd, the young outside, and the opposite was actually better than I expected. It will be a matter of finding an identity and somehow convincing everyone in Middelfart that they should be rooting for a team made up of almost entirely foreign players. Out of everyone, I think this team will be the most fun to watch from outside and see what they become.
I have nothing but good things to say about Gentofte. In fact, as we saw with Geovan the last couple of years, if they had the money and the desire to add a couple of foreign pieces to their team, they would always be in the top of the Elite division. Right now, they are dealing with the exit of a lot of experienced older players so it will take a little while to figure out how to be consistent for a whole season. They'll be good this year, but it's really next year or the year after that will be the exciting for them...
I had mixed feelings going into the tournament because I felt that we hadn't really done anything to earn the pre-season expectations that everyone seems to have for us. We played mediocre volleyball against Wuppertal and in our pre-season tournament. Our training has been interrupted by the national team season and we've had little time to jell as a team. Well, the tournament answered some questions for me. We've got a good team. And not just our starting six, but everyone on the bench as well, we've got a chance to be really good. There were a lot of things we could have done better, including being more aggressive and putting pressure on the other teams, but there were also some signs of how good we can be. I don't know what the finals looked like from off the court, but we controlled that entire match from start to finish. Whether or not the other team was "motivated" or not, they didn't really have a chance and that is a good feeling for our side.
Of course, all of this could be meaningless in less than two weeks when the regular season starts...
Showing posts with label Previews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Previews. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Middelfart Tournament Part 1
So as not to overload my feeble old man's brain, I'm going to split my review of this year's Middelfart tournament into small, random, and probably fragmented installments.
When I think about the weekend, the first thing that comes to mind is - what happened to all the teams and players? Jan D. mentions thinking the same thing in Randers. Kasper mentions in his blog that Hvidovre couldn't come because of their own tournament. Of course, DHG has also dropped their elite men's team and Randaberg from Norway also canceled their trip to the tournament. I wasn't around for last year's tournament, but I know that the year before had at least five to six more teams than this year.
Where did everyone go? Is it just a matter of fewer teams deciding to come to the tournament? Or is it a matter of fewer players and therefore fewer teams? One thing's for sure, there is a severe shortage of middles in Denmark right now. Aarhus has one. Middelfart has one. Gentofte is using less experienced players. If things keep going in this direction I might switch over and look for a contract as a middle for next year...
Seriously though, I'm slightly worried about the thinning out of the elite division. Maybe it's just an off year, a random variation or global warming, but I hope that we aren't seeing the start of a trend. Everywhere I look, it seems that someone is stopping volleyball, buying a house, getting married and having kids.
In any case, I haven't heard a whole lot about more quality players coming up from the youth divisions so I don't really know where the players are supposed to come from. Maybe some of the old guys will get bored with playing in the second division and try to make a come back into the elite. It would be nice to see some rosters with more than seven or eight players on them...
When I think about the weekend, the first thing that comes to mind is - what happened to all the teams and players? Jan D. mentions thinking the same thing in Randers. Kasper mentions in his blog that Hvidovre couldn't come because of their own tournament. Of course, DHG has also dropped their elite men's team and Randaberg from Norway also canceled their trip to the tournament. I wasn't around for last year's tournament, but I know that the year before had at least five to six more teams than this year.
Where did everyone go? Is it just a matter of fewer teams deciding to come to the tournament? Or is it a matter of fewer players and therefore fewer teams? One thing's for sure, there is a severe shortage of middles in Denmark right now. Aarhus has one. Middelfart has one. Gentofte is using less experienced players. If things keep going in this direction I might switch over and look for a contract as a middle for next year...
Seriously though, I'm slightly worried about the thinning out of the elite division. Maybe it's just an off year, a random variation or global warming, but I hope that we aren't seeing the start of a trend. Everywhere I look, it seems that someone is stopping volleyball, buying a house, getting married and having kids.
In any case, I haven't heard a whole lot about more quality players coming up from the youth divisions so I don't really know where the players are supposed to come from. Maybe some of the old guys will get bored with playing in the second division and try to make a come back into the elite. It would be nice to see some rosters with more than seven or eight players on them...
Monday, September 10, 2007
Pre-Season
The pre-season is always kind of a choppy time for a team. Some days it’s hard just to have six or eight guys at practice.
This year, with the national team training for last weekend’s match against Azerbaijan we’ve had even fewer of our corps of players available. So, we’ve worked as well as we can at finding rhythm and consistency as a team. This week will be our first week together with almost all of our players so hopefully the process of finding each other will be accelerated. We’ll find out a lot more about ourselves this weekend when we play in Middelfart. Until then, here’s a quick recap of the matches we have played so far.
Wuppertal (Sønderborg and Odense): We played three matches in total against the team I played for last year and came out of them feeling okay with our performance. Wuppertal is physically better than we are, they have bigger, stronger players at almost every position. Our best chance of beating them is by being smarter, more aggressive and technically better. Not that they aren’t all of those things themselves, but if we want to beat them, we can’t expect to rely on physical superiority. And for us, a team with little training, trying to find an identity with a bunch of new players, it was simply too much to expect that we could beat them. That being said, we performed at a higher level than I expected. We lost a lot more than we won, but those losses weren’t necessarily blowouts. The first two matches were reasonably close. All I can say is that it was unfortunate that we couldn’t do a better job in the third, more “official”, match.
Training Tournament (Odense): It was fun to see another university volleyball team from North American come to Denmark to play this year. I would imagine that the guys from Thompson Rivers felt that they could have done a little better than they did but in the end I think that they had a great time while they were here. The tournament itself was fairly unremarkable. Aarhus didn’t have any true center players with their team (no matter what Rusti tries to tell anybody) so they were kind of struggling with that. As I said before, Thompson Rivers didn’t seem to play their best volleyball. They also used a lot of different rotations and players so it was hard to say how good they really were. ASV kind of surprised everyone when they beat Thompson Rivers on Sunday morning but the match was no fluke. They played well and deserved to win.
We had our own struggles on Sunday morning. One of those matches where it is a hard work to do the easiest things, and that meant that we lost a set to Aarhus before we figured out a way to do enough to win. It was ugly and I’ll leave it at that.
Fortunately, we got it together for the evening match against ASV and played well. It was the first time during the pre-season that I felt we started to understand each other as a team. Our passing was perfect and that meant I could do nearly anything I wanted with the offense. It was a nice way to finish off a long weekend of volleyball.
Now we look ahead to better training opportunities and a couple weeks to find top form for our first match in the Pokal against Midtfyns.
This year, with the national team training for last weekend’s match against Azerbaijan we’ve had even fewer of our corps of players available. So, we’ve worked as well as we can at finding rhythm and consistency as a team. This week will be our first week together with almost all of our players so hopefully the process of finding each other will be accelerated. We’ll find out a lot more about ourselves this weekend when we play in Middelfart. Until then, here’s a quick recap of the matches we have played so far.
Wuppertal (Sønderborg and Odense): We played three matches in total against the team I played for last year and came out of them feeling okay with our performance. Wuppertal is physically better than we are, they have bigger, stronger players at almost every position. Our best chance of beating them is by being smarter, more aggressive and technically better. Not that they aren’t all of those things themselves, but if we want to beat them, we can’t expect to rely on physical superiority. And for us, a team with little training, trying to find an identity with a bunch of new players, it was simply too much to expect that we could beat them. That being said, we performed at a higher level than I expected. We lost a lot more than we won, but those losses weren’t necessarily blowouts. The first two matches were reasonably close. All I can say is that it was unfortunate that we couldn’t do a better job in the third, more “official”, match.
Training Tournament (Odense): It was fun to see another university volleyball team from North American come to Denmark to play this year. I would imagine that the guys from Thompson Rivers felt that they could have done a little better than they did but in the end I think that they had a great time while they were here. The tournament itself was fairly unremarkable. Aarhus didn’t have any true center players with their team (no matter what Rusti tries to tell anybody) so they were kind of struggling with that. As I said before, Thompson Rivers didn’t seem to play their best volleyball. They also used a lot of different rotations and players so it was hard to say how good they really were. ASV kind of surprised everyone when they beat Thompson Rivers on Sunday morning but the match was no fluke. They played well and deserved to win.
We had our own struggles on Sunday morning. One of those matches where it is a hard work to do the easiest things, and that meant that we lost a set to Aarhus before we figured out a way to do enough to win. It was ugly and I’ll leave it at that.
Fortunately, we got it together for the evening match against ASV and played well. It was the first time during the pre-season that I felt we started to understand each other as a team. Our passing was perfect and that meant I could do nearly anything I wanted with the offense. It was a nice way to finish off a long weekend of volleyball.
Now we look ahead to better training opportunities and a couple weeks to find top form for our first match in the Pokal against Midtfyns.
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.
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...
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