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...

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.

Summer Recap

When you start training on August 1st, it feels like a long, long time until the first match starts in late September. It already feels like ages since I had sand between my toes and sun (mostly obscured by clouds or rain) on my face. But, as my legs keep telling me, vacation is over and it’s time to get back into an everyday rhythm. Thus, the first blog posting of the season. It’s going to be mostly about me and the off season so just skip down to the end if you’re not interested. I’m planning on writing about our training matches in the next post.

In case anyone cares, this summer has been pretty crazy for me. Maja and I flew from Germany to the US in May for six weeks. It was actually during my time over there that I decided to sign a contract with Marienlyst. I’ll touch on why a little bit later in this post. When we got back we had to go directly into moving all of our stuff from Germany back up to Denmark. Surprisingly, we had slightly less stuff than we did when we moved the other way. I could tell because instead of being completely packed, there was about 30 centimeters of space between our pile of crap and the ceiling of the SV Bayer van. I’m actually not sure what it says about my life that I can fit all of my stuff in one van.

Anyways, we moved back without anywhere to live. Luckily, ex - (and hopefully future) - Marienlyst center, Jacob Nielsen was leaving the country for vacation and offered his apartment for us to stay in. Several frustrating sessions trying to find a nice rental in Odense resulted in us actually deciding to buy an apartment instead of renting. Without going into too much detail, working on the apartment took up pretty much the rest of what was a fairly disappointing summer for beach volley. I’m still having a hard time processing what happened in Løkken. And, most exciting really, mixed in with all of this, I managed to scratch out an article for Volleyball magazine back in the US. Their website is: www.volleyballmag.com. It’s not the best website ever, but the magazine has a fairly good reputation and I’m pretty proud of how the article turned out. It should be published this month so it will be fun to see my name in print.

So, here we are, early Fall and indoor volleyball has been in full swing for a few weeks now. People keep asking how it feels to be back in Denmark. And the answer has been awkward. To tell the truth, I feel like I never really left. I spent so much time here before that coming back feels natural. Of course there are small differences from the last time I was here but on the whole, everything seems pretty much the same. And that’s a good thing.

Before I signed with Marienlyst, I had several different ideas as to what I should do next year. I had prioritized Wuppertal from the start and hoped that we could agree on another contract. My experience down there was very positive and very hard at the same time. I didn’t get as much playing time as I felt I should have. And what was hardest was looking on from the outside while our team kind of self-destructed in the last match of the quarterfinals. I felt that I could have offered some stuff that we were kind of lacking but at the same time, I think that our setter was a good player and I can’t complain about him being on the court. In any case, I wanted to play another year there and hoped to see the court more often. If we could have found a number that would have made us both happy then I would have done it. Obviously, this wasn’t possible. I think they were looking for something else than what I could offer. Perhaps someone bigger, more intimidating, etc… Funny though, that they would bring me down there and expect me to fill that role. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t the right fit.

I had been contacted by several teams in Germany after the season and was considering trying out for a couple of them. I also hoped to find somewhere to play in France and had asked a couple of agents if they knew of any opportunities. When I left for the US everything was very open. Marienlyst simply made a very good offer and had several other things to their advantage. When I sat down and thought it over, especially after talking with Maja, it was clear that going back to Odense would be a great situation for us both. Also, I’m incredibly impatient when it comes to contracts, etc… and the idea of sitting and waiting for another two months to find out where I would be playing this season just didn’t appeal to me. So, I signed and now I’m back.

Of course, the team has changed since last I was here. And I can’t really complain too much about the new teammates. I’m not quite ready to proclaim us as champions because I think there are a lot of issues that we’ll need to work out before the end of the season. What I do think is that, on paper, we have one of the best teams I have ever been on. Paw, Daniel and Per have been with the national team for most of the pre-season so we haven’t been at full strength yet. When they come back next week we’ll be able to start competing more in practice and that will create a more interesting dynamic around the team. Until then, I’m looking forward to seeing the national team move on to the next round of qualifying this weekend…

Beach Finals

I just saw the Beach volley finals on DK 4 and I wanted to share some thoughts.  I don't know if everyone will think I'm crazy or not, but watching the men's final kind of changed my perspective on beach volleyball in general.  Even though I've played in most of the tournaments this year, this was actually the first time I saw the finals and after seeing them, one thing is really obvious.  Bo and Anders and Lars and Teis are playing at a different level than all the other teams.  For lack of a better word, it's really cool to see them play each other.  Not necessarily because the level is so high (even if it is) but more because the style they play against each other is extremely fun to watch.  There are few shots.  I don't know if that is because they are so fast in defense that it is hard to put the ball away without putting pace on it or if they just feel more comfortable hitting the ball.  But what that means for the viewer is that there is a lot of defense and a lot of scrambling.  It seems to me (and this is where I might just be losing my mind) that the game has kind of evolved past just a straight side out game.  Both sides seemed to be able to consistently pick up, or at least touch, most of the balls in defense.  Put another way, the problem for the two teams didn't seem so much to be able to pick up the other team's shots, the problem seemed to be able to pick up the other team's shots and then put the ball away themselves.  It's kind of the next evolution of the game and it's intriguing. 

I started thinking: maybe this is the future of the game.  Maybe the new beach volleyball isn't just about siding out every time because the defense is so good.  Maybe the new game is about being able to play defense against the other team and then turn that defense into a point.

Now, you're all going to say that this is what volleyball has always been about.  True.  But, the difference is that the defense was so consistent, there were so balls that just didn't get to touch the sand on both sides that it was almost more normal to see a rally where the ball went over the net two or three times before it was over than it was to see a straight sideout.  I think I can count on one hand the amount of shots that hit the sand without someone at least getting a touch on it.  I mean, even when Teis got blocked straight down the ball ended up bouncing off of his knee and almost getting played over again.  In the end it was Lars and Teis that ended up winning the long rallies and that was a huge reason why they won the championship.  The defense has been missing for a long time and it seemed like this final brought it back. 

So congratulations to both teams.  I feel like I saw the future today and if the development continues it is going to be really fun to follow along with.

An Ode to Sideout Scoring

It looks like Friedrichshafen is going to win the finals here in Germany. And may I say, a fitting end to a great season for them. Winning the Champions League, the German Cup and now the Bundesliga title. Okay, they haven't won yet, but it would take a very surprising turn of events for them to lose.

The triple. That sounds pretty good.

Talking to a few people here in Germany, it seems like Friedrichshafen's success could have an effect on volleyball in general throughout the country. More coverage, more sponsors, more money, more fans, more interest. Hopefully it's true.

I've been thinking hard about volleyball the last few weeks. Why isn't it as popular as some other sports? Why aren't our fan numbers growing?

I don't have any real answers, but at some point, I thought to myself, maybe volleyball just isn't that exciting to watch. I mean, it's hard to admit it, being a volleyball player and a lover of the sport, but it's very possible. We've changed the format of the game to be more friendly to television and I guess it's helped in getting volleyball on TV more often. But I still look at the stands and I see an empty arena. We talk about how to "fix" the game so that it is more appealing to more people. The more I think about the idea of "fixing" volleyball, the more disgusted I feel.

I love the game the way it is. Actually, I love the game the way it WAS. I loved sideout scoring. I think that was the coolest thing about volleyball. You had to score a point in your own serve to win a point. And that meant you had to battle for it. Scoring a point was genuinely exciting - for players and for fans - because it was something out of the ordinary, there was a level of difficulty to scoring a real point.

I honestly think that the players have become less interesting since the abolition of sideout scoring. We are more business like, more calm, more focused. Points are easy to come by, all you have to do is sideout, do it 25 times in a row and the game will be over. It's like each team is a big indistinguishable mass of people with no discernible personality because really, what is there to get excited about? Who do people always enjoy watching? Brazil. Why? Because they are the only team that really look like they are enjoying the game. Each point is a celebration. No one else plays that way, no one else has the energy to do it.

I was at a basketball game the other day. And at one particularly exciting point in the game, before I realized what I was doing, I jumped to my feet. It felt totally natural. I was caught up in the moment and I realized afterward that I hadn't felt that way in a long time.

There are only two times where modern volleyball really gets exciting these days. One is when there is a long rally with a lot of great defense. The other is when the score reaches a deuce situation. 24-24 and the teams continue siding out back and forth. That's it.

Let me set the scene for you: Your favorite team is serving, they are ahead 12-10 in the old scoring system, a really good serve is passed poorly by the other team, they set a high ball to the outside who hits the ball well cutting it back to the corner over the setter's head, your position six defender dives to his right and just barely digs the ball with one hand, it comes up high enough for your setter to get under it and make a high set to position 4... This is where I would be feeling that anticipation, that feeling in my stomach, waiting, hoping to see my team's outside make a great swing on the ball and give us a big point to go up 13-10. Can anyone remember that feeling? Am I the only one who used to feel it? In the rally scoring system, this point is still nice, you are still happy to see it as a fan, but it isn't the same. It's just another point. Especially if say, your team wins the point and then goes back and makes a service mistake. All the points mean the same thing and in the end they all kind of blend together.

I recognize the importance of the rally scoring system for the "popularity" of the sport. Of course it is good that the sport is on television more often, but, it seems to me, volleyball was on TV all the time before. I watched because it was exciting then. I watch now because I want it to be exciting.

Where are we headed?

Volleyball players move around a lot. Being a professional is committing yourself to a rootless lifestyle. It's hard to really get comfortable in one place when you easily could be moving somewhere else in a year. What's funny is that each new year, more or less, follows the same program as previous years. Figure out a way to move all your stuff to new place, spend first month trying to get internet and telephone set up and spending way too much on food, spend the next couple of months figuring out the new city, learning where to shop and where to go to have fun. Spend next couple of months repeating the same daily schedule. Spend last months looking forward to the playoffs and figuring out where you will spend next year. Repeat.

Since it is that time of year where everyone is out looking for new jobs (at least the people who aren't ballsy enough to wait until just before next season when they could make even better money but might end up without anything) I thought I would share my thoughts on the whole process.

I've played at three different clubs during my career, switching from SK Aarhus to Marienlyst and from Marienlyst to SV Bayer Wuppertal. The first time, I switched because I thought that Marienlyst provided a much better environment for the players. And it did. The second time, I switched because I wanted to push my limits as a player. I did. There are lots of other reasons to move: experiencing something new, exploring a different culture and the likelihood that I'll be playing for a winning team all play important roles in the decision making process.

Money has never been a big issue for me. True, it's nice to make more money than the year before. But, the money that I make, and this isn't true for some volleyball players who make very good money, is never going to be enough to make me feel rich. I'm not in the class of players who can demand huge sums of cash, therefore there are many other things that mean more to me than money when I'm looking at a potential club to play for.

First, I look at the team and I look at the staff surrounding the team. Do I think I would be a good fit there? Do I think that the staff is reliable and that the players are willing to work hard enough to win? Can we win more than we are going to lose? Is the coach crazy? Is the coach crazy in a bad way? Then I look at the technical stuff. The city and the arena etc...

What I really want though, and this may sound kind of weird, is to know that the club really wants me. Before coming to Europe to play, I used to marvel over how professional athletes in the US could leave a great situation where they had played for many years and were loved by the community, etc... over a few million dollars. They make so much money, I couldn't understand how a couple million dollars could convince a player to just get up and leave a team and move to some other place. Well, the answer is the other team made them feel wanted. That extra money shows that they are willing to go the extra mile for that player. It shows that they believe in that player and want to show that by giving more.

If a club is willing to do something extra for me, then I will seriously consider playing for them. It seems like a simple thing, but not every team manager or club owner understands this very well. Of course, there are certain conditions that have to be met, but a little attention from the club's side can go a long way. I think every athlete likes to have their ego stroked a little bit here and there...

Over?

Coming from the University system in the States,where the volleyball season is much shorter than in Europe, it's surprising how fast the last eight months have gone by. Like I said in the last post: you play and play and play and all of a sudden it's the playoffs and you have one match that decides everything.

Now, the season is over and it still hasn't really registered with me.

Coming into our last match in Unterhaching, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't really have an idea of how everything would turn out. Somehow neither winning nor losing seemed probable. So it was just as much as a spectator looking forward to a great match as a player that I walked into their gym last Tuesday.

It turned out to be a bad experience in both respects.

The match was ugly for us. Nothing really worked at any point. Setting rhythm, serving, blocking, defense, nothing looked sharp. It's not the first time that we took a beating in an away game this year but it certainly was the most disappointing. No one wants to come up empty in a match with so much significance. That's perhaps the best way to describe the feeling afterwards: empty. In a way, it's a fitting end for our team, it's been a roller coaster year, full of ups and downs - most of the ups coming at home and most of the downs coming away - and everytime we had a chance to really break through we took a step backwards instead. It happened in the pokal quarter final, it happened away against Delitzsch and Leipzig and it happened again on Tuesday. All I can say is that hopefully the disappointment turns into motivation and experience for the future.

Personally, I've got all sorts of mixed emotions. While I feel like I contributed a lot to this team, if not in the matches where I played, then definitely in training, I also feel like I never got enough playing time to really get comfortable and make the kind of difference that I wanted to make. I developed my game like crazy and I found out that I am absolutely good enough to be a player in the league, I also had a chance to play significantly and beat a team like SCC Berlin, and that feels good.

As I look forward to next year, I have no idea what is going to happen. Wuppertal has expressed interest in keeping me here, and that would be great, but expressing interest and offering something concrete are two completely different things. Surprisingly, considering the amount of playing time I got this year, I've aready received quite a few phone calls asking about availability for next year. It's always flattering to hear that kind of thing.

At this point, I've got no idea what I want to do. And I'll definitely write more as I work my way through the confusion in the next couple of weeks. Until then, as you can see above, I'm on vacation!

Playoff Time

It's weird when playoff time rolls around. I mean, on one hand, it is what you've been waiting for the whole season. On the other hand, it feels rushed, almost like you can't enjoy it before it's gone. With all the preparation, daily practices/weights, scouting, traveling the last five days feel like a blur. We've been to Unterhaching and back, lost, practiced a little bit and won our match at home. Now, we're looking at a match this Tuesday that has all sorts of implications.

If we win, we finish in the top four no matter what. On top of that, the season lasts another month, during which, we'll play the semi-finals and the finals or 3rd/4th place qualification no matter what. If we lose, the season's over and we're more or less finished. On top of all that, if we win, we're qualified to play European cup tournaments next year. If we lose, we're not. So, you could say that this match means a lot - in a lot of different ways.

In any case, it feels weird to be sitting here, waiting for a deciding third game that carries so much baggage. It just feels like we could have done without half of the regular season games and just gotten down to business with the playoffs. I mean, we play all of these matches over seven months and everything gets decided in about a week. There isn't really anything to be done about it except win!

Besides all the playoff stuff, this time of year is always an interesting time for a volleyball professional. It's the time of year where you sit and wonder about what you're going to be doing at this time NEXT year. And since the majority of volleyball contracts last one year there are a whole lot of athletes in the same situation.

I'll write more about this process soon. For now, worrying about the playoffs and finishing this season is enough without adding the invariably convoluted contract negotiations.

One more day at home before we hit the road for the long trip down to Munich on Monday and hopefully the triumphant return trip Tuesday night!