Season Underway in Germany…

After eleven weeks of preparation, 13 preparation matches, a few thousands kilometres of travel we (SCC Berlin) began our season with a home game at the Max Schmeling Halle against local (more or less) rivals Netzhoppers Bestensee-KW.  By an odd quirk of fate, that was the third time in less than than two years my first game for a new club has been against this opponent.  The first two times, my team lost, beginning the painful descent into bankruptcy.    I’m not suggesting that losing to Netzhoppers necessarily leads to bankruptcy but the evidence is there.  This time however, we didn’t tempt financial fate and in front of 4518 spectators we managed to win 3-0, even coming back from 21-24 in the second set.   And now eight days later, we have played (and won two) more matches, with another tomorrow … the next on Wednesday … and the next on Sunday … and the next on Wednesday…  So far everything is going to plan.  So far.

The German league promises to be the mostly tightly fought for a while.  Perennial champions Friedrichshafen have lost several players but, as always, have restocked well.  Cup holders Unterhaching have turned over a big part of their team but have some good replacements, including Paul Carroll.  In fact most teams seem to be stronger than last season with real expectations for this one.  We are just one of the teams with high expectations which, to the surprise many we have made public.   Apart from our website, you can follow the league here.  We are also active on other media including facebook and our own scc.web.tv which has a new report at least once a week.  The one below shows our team building exercise at a high ropes course.

Things have been pretty busy (see above) so I haven’t been able to write much here but I have so topics ready to go once I get a moment, including: some previews of other leagues, some more thoughts on talent and practice, and why sports science in crap.  Hopefully coming soon 🙂