A convincing Berlin and a reborn Friedrichshafen as a start
Berlin Recycling Volleys swept past TV Ingersoll Buhl in the first game of the semifinal series, while VfB Friedrichshafen took a perfect advantage of all Generali Unterhaching‘s mistakes to score an impressive away win.
More than 5000 spectators in “Max-Schmeling-Halle” saw a fast and ravaging victory for their local favourites (25-14, 25-19, 25-19). A day before the Catholic Easter Mark Lebedew and his lads offered an hour-long volleyball lesson to the visitors from Buhl. On Saturday, 6th April, Ruben Wolochin will prey for a better outcome necessary for the team from the small 30 000 city to stay in business against the reigning champions. TV Buhl usually rely heavily on home supporters and there will be no exception this time either.
Far more drama could be sensed in Unterhaching where a reborn Friedrichshafen hit first (25-17, 17-25, 25-17, 25-21). Strengthened by the Bulgarian international outside attacker Valentin Bratoev, VfB looked differently compared to the whole regular season, not to mention their Champions League participation this year. Fully recovered from his wrist injury, having occurred more like an accident rather than a real injury, Bratoev had a significant contribution to the outcome of the game. Moculescu apparently did some hard work in the break before the playoffs and the friendlies they organized, one of which in Italy against Itas Diatec Trentino, paid off now. Bratoev was expectedly the main serve target, he had problems at the beginning and in the second set specifically when he was substituted by the young Sebastian Krause, but apart from that the Bulgarian was impressive in attack (13 successful out of 17 attempts). His pipe attacks were a surprise element for Raymaekers and Shumov. Another tactical decision by Moculescu was the appearance of Nikola Jovovic right from the start instead of the Slovakian Juraj Zatko. Jovovic caused a lot of trouble to the home side’s reception and Alex Shafranovich was taken off only minutes after the match started. However, I still think Jovovic did some silly mistakes throughout the course of the game (not for the first time) that ruined the overall impression about VfB’s momentum, but as he finished on the winning side yesterday I will wait for a more general conclusion about his progress. For the first time this year though Ventzislav Simeonov did not feel alone on the court. He was there when his teammates needed him, but he received a great deal of support from Max Gunthor, Bratoev and Jose Rivera. The diversity in VfB’s game was notable and Haching might have further problems if their opponents keep the rhythm like it is.
To make every endeavour to be objective, I should mention that Generali certainly had a bad night. Almost everyone from the bench came on to try and turn things around. In vain, unfortunately. Robert Hupka replaced Shafranovich early on and stayed till the every end, but he made too many errors of every kind. Simon Hirsch had some spectacular spikes on his birthday, but he also got stuck from the third set on. True, the game was full of serve and reception mistakes on both sides, besides I would add a definite number of unforced ones as well. More technically balanced games are to come in the next days for sure, but from what the two teams showed yesterday Friedrichshafen are going to be more dangerous than expected. The ray of hope I see is Jan Willem Snippe who has often been doing a great job as a main scorer. Such was the case last night even if his 10 points were far from enough. Mihai Paduretu needs to motivate his guys and to clear their minds on Saturday because another defeat will seriously decrease their title hopes.
Pictures: Berlin Recycling Volleys, CEV
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