Holte Match

Not a whole lot to say about the match from this end. I watched the game from the bench and it wasn’t particularly noteworthy. Holte played fine, perhaps pressing their serves a bit too much, and we played fine also. In the end we won fairly comfortably and can now look forward to Thursday’s match up in Aalborg where hopefully I’ll be ready.

Weekends Matches 27*1*06

Ugh. Soon enough I’ll have to do something about this shoulder. We were talking in the locker room yesterday about just cutting it off and replacing it with some kind of robotic attachment. Then I could really hit the ball hard. Just a nice solid titanium replacement shoulder with arm attachment.

Anyways, it’s extremely irritating to have a body part holding me back from being able to perform, but that’s life and there is nothing else to do but keep rehabbing it. Luckily for us we’ve got Lasse to step in and set the ball…at least until I get my bionic attachment.

With that said, let’s look forward to the weekend’s matches:

Middelfart @ SK (H 1.50): I saw SK play in the Pokal final and I was very impressed. It was clear that they have improved a lot since the beginning of the season and it made me nervous for our match against them. Luckily, we were able to come away with a 3-0 win from a match where SK didn’t play as well as they did in the Pokal. My feeling is that they are still finding their level as a team and that they still have quite a few things to work on before they can really be considered a strong threat to the best teams in the league. Middelfart is also coming off a nice 3-0 win against Gentofte so their confidence must be fairly high at the moment. Add the revenge factor from the semi-final and I think this one goes to Middelfart. 3-0 at that.

Aalborg (H1.50) @ Gentofte: This one is going to be interesting. Who really knows where Aalborg’s level is right now? They beat Holte decisively at home last weekend, but the match they played before that was a brutal loss to PVC Lyngby just before Christmas break. Clearly Gentofte has been playing well all season, especially at home, and there is no doubt that they are the favorites in this one. But, I have a hard time saying that HIK doesn’t have a good chance here. I think with the odds and the handicap the way they are, this one is a HIK bet or nothing at all. Last time they played it was a five set match, I’m guessing that it will go the distance again. Should be really interesting to see who wins.

Holte (H2.50) @ Marienlyst: I’m probably out for this one, but we don’t lose much when Lasse comes in, the offense will roll on. Odds might be a little low to really be of much value even though I am confident we will win this won. 3-0 to us!

Good luck to everyone this weekend, feel free to send designs for a new bionic shoulder to my email...

SK Match 21-1-06

It had been a long, long time since we last played a match. A little uncertainty about where our level would be after the break, combined with SK’s fairly strong performance in the pokal final, made me think it would be a pretty even match. As it turned out, it was.

Generally, I think both teams sided out with a high efficiency. The major difference was that SK wasn’t able to hold stability in the rest of their game. Without any actual stats in front of me, I would guess that they had more clean aces than we did, but that they had a significant number of “2’s” in passing that made it easier for our block to get a good read on their hitters. I also think that the tempo of their offense is slightly slower than what we are used to, as a result we had more time to set two man blocks on our side. Their hitters also made some key mistakes that bailed us out when we didn’t effectively side out.

The second set was particularly interesting as we trailed pretty much the whole way. At 24-21 it didn’t look particularly good for us, but a few well-placed serves from the Scottish legend, created an opportunity that we ended up making good on. Kind of chronically for SK, they made a few errors at the end of the set and gave us a little hope, which in turn gave us the confidence to take the set. I think that winning that set gave us a real boost. It confirmed that we could get points when we needed them and took a lot of pressure off of us. Obviously, 1-1 in sets is a lot different from 2-0…

BT and Hansen deserve a lot of credit for creating the raw material with their passing. Also, Stewart had probably his best day for the team, he even hit some balls into the court without first hitting someone in the block! Congratulations Stewart! Overall, this one was a nice team victory for us. Everyone found a way to contribute and the team worked as a collective, really something that I think we can be proud of and hopefully a trend that will continue.

It’s a good feeling to shake off the rust of a long vacation with a pretty crisp win at home. More importantly, it’s nice to create a little space between us and the rest of the competition in the standings. Now it’s all about getting ready for next week and a visit from Holte and their incredible, interchangeable, ever-mutating team. (Just kidding Kristoffer, just wanted to mess with you a bit). Congratulations to all the teams this week, glad to be back!

Pokal Review and The Coming Weekend

First, I just want to say that I appreciate all the discussion on the Royal League topic. It was extremely interesting to hear different points of view on the subject. No matter what, the more opinions heard the better.

Second, I wasn’t going to go to the Pokal final on Sunday, but I ended up getting talked into it and I’m glad that I was there to see it. The match was one of the most entertaining that I have seen all year. And I don’t care how you feel about SK Aarhus and their foreign line-up, they all came to play hard. I would say that their excitement was half of the reason why the game was fun to watch. The other half was of course Geo Santos, who pretty much took over the match when it mattered. In any case, I had split feelings about the match, I was happy to see that the match was played at a nice level and I was unhappy to see just how hard it is going to be to do well in the slutspil this year.

Interesting also to note that Gentofte got it handed to them in Middelfart last night. Not that Middelfart winning was a surprise, but 3-0 without ever really being in trouble? I don’t think anyone would have predicted that…

It’s going to be great to get back into a competitive setting after having more than a month off from any real matches. It will be interesting to see where we are in terms of improvement as a team and interesting to see how SK reacts to their loss in the Pokal. I think it’s going to be a real good match but hopefully we’ll have enough to pull out the win. It should be exciting.

I also like the other home team up in Aalborg this weekend. They have been kind of lying low, flying under the radar this season, it is time for them to show that they have the class that all the rest of us expect them to have. I anticipate a solid match from their end.

Which reminds me, can anyone explain the rules that govern who can play for a second team? For example, I watched Holte play DHG in the DVBF cup last weekend and there was at least one Holte player who I’ve seen playing with their first team. If that tournament is only for second team players then how can someone also play elite? Also, congratulations to Holte for winning the DVBF cup again, but you certainly could have injected a little energy into it, eh?

Good luck to everyone this weekend, time to get back to the grind!

Royal League?

Over the Christmas break there has been some discussion about the amount of games that we play in a season. What is the optimal number? How do we make all of the matches matter? How do we make sure that the best teams are developing? Essentially, how do we make sure that the league continues to develop, in relation to Denmark and in relation to a bigger European picture? I think one of the answers may be to create a Royal League type volleyball tournament.

Much has been written about the disconnect between the top and bottom of the elite division. Clearly there are not enough good teams here in Denmark. More specifically, there are NO teams that are ready to have success in a European tournament. Our Marienlyst team last year was summarily dismissed from the CEV cup with one set won out of three matches. And that team lost two sets in all of the after Christmas season. So, development towards a league that can prepare its best teams for success in Europe is absolutely necessary. It’s also not a stretch to say that the same goes for the leagues in Norway and Sweden.

What can teams do to be more prepared for the level of volleyball outside of their respective countries? Well…playing more volleyball against teams from outside their country is definitely a necessary part of the equation. And that is where a Royal League of volleyball could be extremely valuable.

Certainly, a Royal League like the one that football is currently playing is not feasible for any of the clubs playing volleyball anywhere in Scandinavia. The format that I imagine is much more possible in relation to the budget and time of the average Scandinavian club. First, the league would be restricted to Norway, Denmark and Sweden. It would be great to include teams from Finland as they have had some success internationally but traveling to Finland is quite a bit more involved than the other two countries.

Quite simply the League would consist of three separate tournaments that all could be played over a weekend. Each country would host one of the tournaments. Take the top two teams from each league and place one each into two separate pools. The exact specifications for which team would go where could be worked out pretty easily. But, I would think it would look something like: Pool A: (#1 from Denmark, #2 from Sweden and #1 from Norway). Pool B: (#1 from Sweden, #2 from Norway and #2 from Denmark). These two pools play during the same weekend in different countries, say Norway and Denmark. The best four teams get seeded into a four-team tournament at a later date in Sweden to determine the champions.

Overall, the whole thing would take two weekends to complete and each team would be get at least two strong matches. (If they advanced to the finals they would get at least four high quality matches). As far as I can tell, every team in Denmark could find room in their schedule for something like this. And not only would they get good competition out of it, they would have a chance to get used to traveling to other countries and playing under different circumstances. Whether or not something like this would be popular with fans is absolutely secondary. The way Danish volleyball is right now, there aren’t enough high level games, especially before Christmas, and a tournament like this would give access to a good training and development opportunity. With minimal investment everyone could benefit from a scenario like this.

Eventually, the idea would be to be able to add more teams. Whether it is the third place team from each league or two more from Finland, the more games the better. But at the moment, I see this as the most feasible model, something that would take little effort and give maximal benefits. Plus, it would be interesting to see which country is playing at the highest level right now…

Wuppertal Trip #2

So, the long Christmas break continues on, and we continue to prepare ourselves for what should be an exciting slutspil. Luckily enough, we had an opportunity over the weekend to take a trip down to Germany to play a practice tournament in Wuppertal. Four teams: Us, Wuppertal, Eltmann from Germany and Halen from Belgium. Each team would play three sets with each other and then the best two teams would play in a final on Sunday while the other two would play a third/fourth place classification match.

While we didn’t make it into the final (Surprisingly!) we definitely got a lot out of the experience. As a team we were able to experiment with a lot of different line-ups, positions and substitutions. Playing against quality opponents it becomes clear very fast which of these experiments were successful and which were not.

There were big swings in a lot of the sets that we played; but, we did manage to play some fairly good volleyball at times. We took a set from Halen in our first match and were one point away from taking another. The next night we took a set from Wuppertal, which turned out to be enough to stop them from making it into the finals. The match against Eltmann didn’t go quite as well, as they seemed to have a gear that they could shift to that we simply could not match. Their opposite must have hit in the high .800’s for the match…

Overall, I think we have to be satisfied with the way that things went. It seems that our play is headed in the right direction. Defensive intensity is picking up and the general team chemistry seems to be very positive. Personally, I’m starting to get back into the swing of things after a long recovery from my shoulder problem. I think the time off for Christmas has helped with the healing quite a bit. Now it is just a matter of working off those extra holiday kilos and letting the legs get used to the regular pounding of everyday training. After all the traveling in the last few weeks, I’ll be glad to just settle back into a more normal routine.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and is enjoying the EXTRA time off from playing any official matches.

Toubro for MVP...

I had a good chance to think about last night’s loss as we drove home from Copenhagen. It hit me lot harder than a lot of other losses that I have ever been a part of. Partly because we were so thoroughly manhandled, partly because it was such an important game and partly because it has been a long, long time since I have participated in a loss, almost two years actually.

But there was no doubt that Gentofte was a far better team than us last night. They had a great game plan (and I admit that part of it was leaving Stewart wide open, so if any other teams want to use that tactic they are welcome to it), they were excited to play and they executed well. That being said, we had several chances to score points but it seemed like almost every time that we picked a ball up in defense and tried to transition it, they would just block whoever was hitting. Whether I was choosing the wrong people to set to or whether their block was just that good doesn’t really matter. In the end the match wasn’t close, and the scores reflect that.

Mads Toubro was the best player on the court by far. I would say that he changed the whole complexion of the match in the first set. It seemed like everytime we threatened to push our lead to more than two points they could rely on him to put a difficult ball away, no matter if there were two or three blockers waiting for him. His serving was also good. So, hats off to Gentofte, I hope that you play as well as you did last night in the finals! And hopefully next time we play each other, we can give you guys some competition.

Now, on to us. After playing Middelfart (in training) and Gentofte in the last few days I think it is fairly obvious that they are the two teams to beat at this point in the season. There is no doubt in my mind that they are a class above us right now and that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us if we want to reach that level. Hopefully with the LONG break until the first match after Christmas we will have time to get in the gym and work on our problems. And there is a long list to go through.

A few notes from Hvidovre and Middelfart...

A match report is already up on Marienlystcentret.dk but I thought I would add a couple of thoughts on our match from Sunday and our training match against Middelfart from yesterday.

I have been fairly kind to Hvidovre throughout the season. In the beginning, I wrote that I felt that they had the potential to do better than they have in the past couple of seasons. After playing them, and this isn’t to be unnecessarily hard on Hvidovre, I understand why they aren’t winning many matches.

Generally, and most importantly, they are far too careless with points. Lose a point? No big deal, move on. Hit a ball out? Make an unhappy face and then move on. Serve into the back wall? Yell angry words and then forget about it. These things have to run deeper than just a superficial expression of how angry you are at yourself for making a mistake. You have to take that mistake, understand why and how you made it and then try to correct it.

While it is important as a volleyball player to forget about the last play and move on, it is also vital that the collective losing of points be stored somewhere in your brain so that you can be aware of when it is time to make a secure serve or when it is time to really go for it. Aggressiveness is key. But controlled aggression is the name of the game. Serving ball after ball out, in the name of “pressing your serve” is not the way to win a match. (Note: This turned into a diatribe on volleyball in general, not just Hvidovre)

Specifically for Hvidovre: The blocking tactics were mystifying. I take it as a kind of personal insult sometimes when teams decide not to block against one of my players. Leaving the opposite open cannot be considered a good tactic. It implies that one; he isn’t good enough to put the ball away with no blockers. Two, that I won’t be good enough to see that you aren’t blocking against him. And three, that you will now be able to stop our middles or other hitters just because you have an extra blocker to help. Also, committing on the middle every time is just an invitation for disaster. You may get one good solid stuff block somewhere in match, that is true. But even that isn’t for sure. What is for sure is that the outside hitters will hit a really high percentage because they will be hitting against one blocker all day long.

It’s important that middle blockers make an effort to read the game if they are ever going to develop into good players. You cannot just commit in the middle all the time. It’s lazy and sloppy and it makes the game much too easy for the other team. I don’t deny that middle blocker is probably the hardest position to play in the game of volleyball, but that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t try to play it well. And I don’t mean this just for Hvidovre, that goes for a lot of the middle blockers that we have played against this year. Using what I have just said as a smooth transition, there is a team that is playing very disciplined volleyball, with middles that are working very hard on reading, and that team is Middelfart.

In our training match last night there was no doubt which team was better and it wasn’t us. I wouldn’t say that we played up to our best and I don’t have a good reason why not, but they clearly outplayed us in all the facets of the game. Particularly defense, where they touched a lot of balls, both at the net and in the backrow. It was great to see a team functioning as a unit the way they do, and I have to take my hat off to them. Hopefully, the next time we play we’ll be able to match some of that intensity and give you guys a good game.

If we plan on winning in Gentofte on Wednesday then it will take a much better effort than last night. There were just too many errors, especially on simple plays. We couldn’t get into a good rhythm because somewhere in the chain of bump, set, spike we would make a mistake. Volleyball can be an easy game unless you make it really hard on yourself and we did that last night. Anyways, hopefully thing will turn around here today and tomorrow and we can look forward to a Pokal final after Christmas…