Michał Superlak (r.) repeatedly found gaps in Berlin’s block and was the MVP of the game with 25 points.
Photo: imago/Contrast
Mark Lebedev has already taken part in too many final series of the Volleyball Bundesliga not to take off immediately despite all the joy of an opening victory. His team from VfB Friedrichshafen had just inflicted their first home defeat of the entire season on the favorites Berlin Volleys with a 3-2 win on Monday evening and had therefore surprisingly taken a 1-0 lead in the best of five series. But three wins are needed for the title in the playoffs, and Lebedev knows how difficult it is to win against the BR Volleys. So the Australian coach gathered his players together on the floor, stood in their midst and started preaching: “Today was difficult. We solved the task through fighting spirit and cohesion. But the second game on Wednesday will definitely be even more difficult. Berlin won’t want to be 2-0 behind and will do everything it can to fight back.”
Lebedev knows the comeback qualities of the BR Volleys only too well. Basically, he instilled it into the club himself when he was the Berlin coach between 2010 and 2015. Under him, the Volleys lost their first final game twice, but ultimately won the championships in 2012 and 2014 and began their phase of dominance that continues to this day. Since then, the Volleys have only been defeated once: in 2015 by Friedrichshafen. Lebedev then left Berlin and returned to the league in 2021 as a trainer for the record champions in Friedrichshafen.
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Two years ago he had to experience from the other side what it’s like to upset Berlin’s volleyball players. “Even a 0-2 does not mean the end, as we all witnessed,” he remembers clearly how the Volleys won the last three games of the season in April 2022 and thus the title. »Even now they will come to us with the attitude that they absolutely have to win and equalize immediately. We will therefore have to get more out of it to prevent that,” said Lebedev, looking at the upcoming game in Friedrichshafen this Wednesday.
If you believe Berlin’s captain Ruben Schott, this additional motivation wouldn’t have been needed at all, because he and his colleagues are by no means tired of the title: “We have some players who won’t stay with us after the season. They definitely want to become champions here again. And the same applies to all of us: We currently have just as many championship titles as VfB. That’s why it’s a very special final series this year.”
In fact, the two teams will meet in the final series for the eleventh time in a row. Friedrichshafen finally used up a once big lead last year, so that the Volleys and VfB are now joint record champions this year with 13 titles each. Friedrichshafen doesn’t want to lose this name, but Berliners don’t want to share it either. In this respect, VfB’s hard-fought 3-2 win at the start fits the narrative of the two rivals at the top, even if there wasn’t exactly top-class volleyball on Monday. Instead, the game was dominated by many errors in serving and receiving on both sides. After a 1-2 deficit, the guests at least found their way back to their strengths in attack in the end, as main attacker Michał Superlak in particular repeatedly found the gaps in the Berlin defense.
»Friedrichshafen had five games in the last two weeks. They’re fully in the rhythm that we’re missing because we had a week off,” said Berlin’s setter Johannes Tille, who was a little concerned about the fact that his Vollys had quickly finished their semi-final series 3-0, while Friedrichshafen needed five games. His coach Joel Banks also saw this as the main reason for the defeat. »Superlak played excellently in the semi-finals. The big difference, however, was our serve. That’s usually one of our strengths, but today we were constantly looking for our rhythm and never really found it.”
Nevertheless, the Volleys managed to turn a 0-1 set deficit into a 2-1 lead. But then the comeback expert Lebedev’s hour came. »We took a deep breath, changed our serving tactics a little, but above all we started fighting. Sometimes all tactics are all well and good, instead you just have to go out there and say: Now we’re going to win this fucking thing. And then you do that.” Volleyball can sometimes seem so easy.
But now that Berlin should also be back in rhythm, it was up to Lebedev to identify the many games of the past two weeks as a disadvantage. »We won’t find out how we cope until Wednesday. It’s not ideal that we’re going home on the bus tonight. We will try to rest as much as possible. Take an ibuprofen tomorrow and we’ll hit the ground running again on Wednesday.” On Tuesday, the Berliners afforded themselves the luxury of a plane trip to the southwest of the republic.
Perhaps it is also this detail that made Volleys captain Schott remain optimistic: “We have to give everything, because Friedrichshafen gives us nothing. We saw that today. But if we serve a little better on Wednesday, we will create a lot more chances so that we can beat them,” he said late on Monday evening. Of course, the national player also knows the recent history of the Bundesliga. »That wasn’t a broken leg. It happened every now and then that we left the first game behind.” A smile. A wink. That was enough of a declaration of war.
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