In this region there is an important festival to celebrate the end of winter called Fasching. Most things were shut here and there was a parade and party in the town square for most of the day. As with the bank robbery, it seems that paying attention to what is happening in my town is not my best skill. This was slightly further away than the bank but not much and I didn’t notice it all.
If you’ve really been paying attention you would already know that about 6 weeks ago I left Jastrzebie in Poland and joined a new club in Germany, SG Eschenbacher Eltmann. As the head coach, I’ve had a little less time on my hands for such things as blog posting. Add to that moving in and getting settled and that leaves even less time. But those are just excuses.
The town of Eltmann is a tiny village near Bamberg in south Germany. The region is Bavaria and the normal greeting here isn’t ‘good day’ but ‘greet god’. I don’t really know what they say after that because the accent is quite distinct. The town is really nice and every day I feel guilty about driving my car to practice despite it being only about 1 kilometre from my apartment. I have mostly used snow and rain and cold as an excuse but the one day I did walk it made my knee sore for the next week (it is slightly uphill). So that has been the excuse for the rest of the time.
The team had been struggling and has continued to struggle. We’ve had strong positions in nearly all of the matches we’ve played but anyone who says luck doesn’t play a part in sport is kidding themselves. In one match we had an incorrect referee overrule on one decisive point AND a decisive service series that turned out to be ALL foot faults. But we’ve kept working because, well, that’s the only thing you can do when things aren’t going well.
There are probably a hundred details I could relate but I haven’t the time. Or the security clearance. But to make up for it a few videos.
Here is the interview I did in the VIP room after the first match.
Here is a video of an interview I did before my first home game.
Here is a fan montage of our most recent match against the current German champions.
And to prove that Eltmann is a really important place, a news clip about a bank holdup that happened less than 100m from my apartment… without me noticing it until the police knocked on my door.
20th dec – bydgoszcz
After the great relief of breaking our losing streak, followed by the easy win and pleasant time in the middle of the atlantic ocean we were supremely, or at least quietly, confident of finishing the year with a win in Bydgoszcz. Bydgoszcz were bottom of the league and had just changed their coach. We knew of course that teams that change coaches often have at least a short term burst of energy and optimism and can be dangerous at that moment. But we beat them easily earlier in the season and now we were in form and confident so nothing could go wrong. In the first two sets nothing did. Essentially we put the ball in play and let them lose, which they were kind enough to do. But then the opposing coach made the decisive move. He brought on a young player to replace an old player. The young player didn’t understand that everyone was supposed to just quietly play out the game, let the good team will win, let the bad team will lose and let everyone go on holidays. He actually trying to win. Unfortunately after the travel that we had gone through the previous couple of days we had no response. For the last three sets we kind of kept with them for a while in each, but just had no energy. It was excruciating and seemed to go on forever, although in reality it was really only about an hour and a half before it mercifully ended. The good news was that as a final Christmas present, the point we won for the first two sets was enough to actually move us up to fourth in the league. And of course the crisis was over. Probably.
Some photos here.
3rd jan – radom
We returned from our 8 free days remarkably full of energy and happy to be back, the loss in bydgoszcz seemingly forgotten. Even the prospect of training on new years eve AND new years day didn’t affect the mood and we had some of the best sessions we have had this season. So when the other bottom team ventured to our gym, also dragging along a new coach, we were definitely not perturbed. And this time, it worked out the way it was supposed to. The new coach ‘miraculous turnaround’ that we had experienced in Bydgoszcz was apparently a local phenomenon. This guy certainly tried everything, but he had no chance. With the extra energy that can only be brought by a few days break from training, and each other, we dominated the match from the beginning. It was the easiest 3 points we have won this season and was a wonderful relaxing evening in the gym. Why can’t they all be like this?
Some photos are here.
7th jan – polish cup
Due to our streak of losses before Christmas, we finished the first half of the season in fifth place. In some leagues, ours included, that actually has a practical outcome. And the practical outcome is to do with the Cup. The ‘Cup’ in volleyball isn’t quite like the ‘Cup’ in football other than it is a knockout tournament. Every country has a different format, often radically different. In Italy for example, only the first 8 placed teams after the first round play in the ‘Cup’. In Poland, the ‘Cup’ is a long tournament with many rounds beginning at regional levels, with the top division teams joining in at either the last 16 stage or last 8 stage. And by not being in the top 4 after the first round, we got to join in at the last 16, giving us two extra matches on top of our European Cup commitments, giving us two matches a week for all of January.
Clubs get nervous about the extra games because by this time of the season they are not as optimistic as the beginning and an extra round of games is an extra obstacle in the fulfilment of the season’s objectives. Coaches hate the extra games because they stuff up the schedule and reduce the training possibilities. Players on the other hand, quite like the extra games because if they are playing they are not training. It might surprise you to realise that coaches always want to train more and players always want to train less. That is the eternal struggle. But I digress…
We were drawn with a team from Bielsko Biala, a city not far from us and the top team in 2nd league. The format is like European Cup in that it is played over two legs, home and away and we played the first leg at home. The only thing I can say about this match is that if you got through the preamble and description of how the ‘Cup’ works, you probably had about as much enjoyment as the few of our most rabid fans who actually came to the match. And just as you ploughed on hoping for a punchline of some kind as payoff for your efforts, they ventured out in the snow to see a victory, any victory. They got theirs…
By the way, our 3-0 victory all but guarantees us a place in the next round. All but…
Some photos are here.
As I implied in part 1, in many ways this trip was a pleasant respite from the slog of the season as we got to spend some actual quality time in a single place that was also interesting. When you get quality time somewhere you have the rare chance to actually learn something, and on this trip I learnt about Portuguese bullfighting. The bus driver who drove us the kilometre to the gym and back had a video in the bus that enthralled us with images of bulls, on the ends of long ropes, wandering through village streets being taunted by drunken idiots who then quickly climbed back over the protective fences before gouged. Sometimes the bulls were quick enough to make contact but much to my disappointment there never seemed to be any permanent damage to the aforementioned idiots, who were then greeted with high fives from their friends. Presumably for being so cool.
Now I can understand to some degree the theatre of classical bullfighting with toreadors and red capes. And I have even thought, albeit briefly, that running with the bulls could be something I might like to do myself. But this particular brand of bull ’sport’ seemed to be just taunting them and then seeing if you could get away in time. Speaking to a local in the evening I learnt that all villages on the island of Terceira, where we were staying (and perhaps other places too), have their own festival each of which lasts for about a week during summer. In ‘our’ village, it takes place on the beach in front of the hotel. The local went on to say how noble and strong the bulls are and how exciting it is to get out there and test yourself. And I further learnt that one person from the village was so seriously injured that he had to spend a month in hospital. I guess they don’t include those highlights in the video package that they sell to tourists, but I was secretly the pleased the bulls got one back.
Once the educational part of the journey was done, it was time for the return journey. And what a journey. As I mentioned, the Azores isn’t the easiest place to get to and it proved to be even harder to leave and our planned itinerary had us going straight to Bydgoszcz for our last match before Christmas. The first leg was straightforward and actually quite pleasant. The 10.30 departure was very civilised and the flight to the main island of Sao Miguel was just a short hop. Even the nine hour wait was welcome as it was more than enough time to venture to the capital of Azores, Ponta Delgado, and have a really rather excellent lunch at a very nice restaurant and still get back to the airport in time to settle in and actually do some preparation for that match. Those hours in the airport were however the last part of the journey that was okay. From that moment on, none of the journeys or transits were long enough to sleep. A two hour flight had us landing in Lisbon at 1am, for our 6am flight to Munich. That three hour flight connected perfectly with our 1.5 hour flight to Poznan where the bus met us to take us the last two hours to Bydgoszcz where we arrived at about 4pm after about 30 hours of travel, including 4 separate flights and 1 bus trip. And no sleep. And a game tomorrow. And a training in 2 hours. But there was one small touch of home when I opened the hotel room to find a huge picture of the 12 Apostles hanging over the bed. But I was asleep too soon to look at…
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| portuguese adventure – part 2 |
There was some question about how much people jump in a volleyball match. This data was collected from two Belgian League matches between teams in the top three. It was collected and collated by Johan Devoghel.
| 051022 PJL-ROE (1-3) | 0511218 MAA-PJL (3-2) | |||||||
| TIME | AVE RALLY | AVE BREAK | AVE BREAK* | TIME | AVE RALLY | AVE BREAK | AVE BREAK* | |
| 102 | 10.1 | 21 | 19 | 115 | 10.4 | 23 | 19 | |
| LENNIK PLAYER JUMPS | LENNIK PLAYER JUMPS | |||||||
| PLAYER | TOTAL JUMPS | JUMPS/MIN | PLAYER | TOTAL JUMPS | JUMPS/MIN | |||
| S** | 32 | 0.31 | S | 43 | 0.37 | |||
| O | 77 | 0.75 | O | 100 | 0.87 | |||
| PH1 | 63 | 0.62 | PH1 | 63 | 0.55 | |||
| PH2** | 63 | 0.62 | PH2** | 69 | 0.60 | |||
| MB1 | 96 | 0.94 | MB1 | 131 | 1.14 | |||
| MB2 | 90 | 0.88 | MB2 | 87 | 0.76 | |||
| * | average break between rallies (not including set breaks) | |||||||
| ** | combination of two players playing this position | |||||||
So with a much needed, confidence building win under our belts we hit the road on Monday to play the second leg of our European Challenge Cup match in the Azores. As you can imagine, travelling to a small, tourism oriented island group in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during December is not that straight forward and such a stressful moment of the season might not be the best timing for it. But once those ping pong balls came out we were locked in.
The first ‘glitch’ was that due to its out of the way nature instead of travelling the day before the game we had to travel on Monday for a Wednesday match. The travel wasn’t too bad, just one bus trip and three flights in 16 hours and we arrived in as good a condition as you could expect. At least our hotel was right on the beach. An entire day in any destination is a rarity and given that the only training time we could arrange was 8.30pm we had virtually the whole day to be tourists which meant I got to see a bit of somewhere before ticking it off on my ‘places I’ve been’ list. I can report that the town of Praia Vittoria on the island of Terceira is a very pretty place. It is neat and tidy and clean and obviously tourism oriented. And in December even if it is too cold to swim in the ocean, it is warm enough to splash around for a few minutes. That was enough for me and I didn’t shower to rest of the day so I could keep the ocean smell on me.
The reason we couldn’t get an earlier training time was that the gym in the town is a school gym and all the local hobby teams had to use their normal practice times. It was like being back in Australia! It became slightly more problematic when we arrived the next day for the game and were refused permission by the gym caretaker to walk on his hallowed court with our dress shoes. We politely ignored him but the coach was outraged. For me it wasn’t the first time, although it was the first time since I was coaching in division 4 in Germany. As it turned out, given that it was a European Cup match and televised on Portuguese TV, we were given a special dispensation and the police didn’t need to be called.
Given the size of the town, we didn’t expect a big crowd but were still a bit surprised that 35 minutes before game time there were only 2! spectators in the gym. What brought a smile to our faces was that they were huddled under a giant banner that read ‘Volleyball is our passion’. It turned out though that 30 minutes was the moment that the crowd was let in and for the few hundred that did rush in, it was clear that volleyball was their passion as they provided a great atmosphere for the match.
In the end though, that was not enough to make the match memorable as we won easily and booked our passage to the next round and a trip to Kiev. I am looking forward to that because Ukraine is the place of (half of) my ancestors – and because there are direct flights from Poland!
But before we worry about that we had to get home – and that is a story in itself…
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| portuguese adventure |
The popularity of spectator sport is strangely inexplicable to many people. Well, I find it strange because to me the cause of the popularity is perfectly obvious. If you take away the ball/stick/stopwatch all spectator sport comes down to one thing: the actions of and interactions between human beings. And as we know from the popularity of Reality TV, the actions and interactions of human beings are mostly unpredictable and endlessly compelling to other human beings.
Take yesterday’s match for example. All the evidence of the previous matches would have predicted an easy victory for Kedzierzyn. They were undefeated, playing well and were at home in front of one of the biggest and loudest crowds in the league. We, on the other hand, had lost our last 3 out of 4 in the league and were playing just three days after one of the most dire performances anyone (certainly me) could imagine. But a funny thing happened on the way to the three points.
The match was completely the opposite of what anyone ought to have expected.
Where before we were passive, yesterday we were aggressive.
Where before we were disorganised, yesterday we were organised.
Where before we played dumb, yesterday we played smart. And of course,
where before we were unlucky, yesterday we were lucky.
And what makes it most interesting, is that there was no reason for anyone, except perhaps our faithful fans, to expect it. Any of it.
So the crisis is (probably) over and we finished the first round on a high note. The league is very close, so we will likely be 5th when the round is finished but certainly within reach of all the places above us. Tomorrow we head towards New York and stop in the Azores to play the second leg of our European Cup match against the Bastardos. On yesterday’s form, that ’should’ be a formality, but in reality the best we can hope for is ‘could’ be a formality because you just never know…
Tonight one team played at the peak of their ability, with aggression and heart and gave everything they had to win until the last point of the match. And to prove that life is really, REALLY unfair, that team will travel back to Portugal tomorrow having lost.
Of course ‘unfair’ doesn’t automatically imply either good or bad. So while for players, staff, fans and sponsors of Ponte do Bastardo ‘unfair’ is bad, for the players, staff, fans and sponsors of Jastrzebski Wegiel ‘unfair’ is very, VERY good. Actually, change that to just very good. We were still bad.
Enough said.
After the initial euphoria of having my ‘Alphabet’ published died down a little, I thought I better check what was up there. One of our fans, Ania, who I know quite well, did the translation and while I obviously can’t understand the Polish myself I thought I could at least check it with the ‘original’ translation which I knew was pretty accurate. It turns out that between her work and the publishing date there were a few editorial ‘corrections’. According to her they changed the sense of it a little and lost some of the (intended) humour.
So for all Polish readers, especially Ania, here is the correct version.
SIATKARSKI ALFABET MARKA LEBEDEWA
A jak ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA – możesz opuścić Adelaide, ale ona nigdy nie opuści twojego serca. Mój dom.
B jak BODZIO – najlepszy łowca siatkarskich talentów w Polsce.
C jak CROWS (WRONY) – jak Adelaide Crows, moja drużyna footbolowa. Nie proście o to, bym wyjaśniał, czym jest australijski football, bo nie potrafię. TO NIE JEST rugby.
D jak DEUTSCHLAND (NIEMCY) – kraj, w którym grałem i byłem trenerem przez cztery lata i w którego języku potrafię mówić. Mój dom.
E jak EIGHT (OSIEM) – numer, z którym występowałem na boisku. Bez powodu. A przynajmniej bez żadnego, którego bym pamiętał.
F jak FAMILY (RODZINA) – mój tata urodził się w Rosji i był prezydentem Australijskiej Federacji Piłki Siatkowej. Moja mama urodziła się w Anglii i nie lubiła sportu. Mój brat, tak jak ja, jest trenerem. Myślę, że mój ojciec „wygrał”, ale bez któregokolwiek z nich nie mógłbym być teraz tutaj.
G jak GUITAR (GITARA) – najbardziej ceniony przeze mnie przedmiot. Może nie jestem za dobrym muzykiem, ale gra na gitarze to moja pasja.
H jak HOME (DOM) – proste pytanie, ale trudna odpowiedź. Przynajmniej dla mnie… Zobacz A, D, K i Z.
I jak iPOD – jestem pewien, że iPod jest najfajniejszą rzeczą na świecie. I chyba jednak właśnie ten przedmiot najbardziej cenię.
J jak JASTRZĘBSKI WĘGIEL –najbardziej profesjonalny klub, w jakim pracowałem. Klub, dzięki któremu zawsze czułem się tu jak w domu.
K jak KILLARA – nazwa budynku w Canberze, gdzie mam własne mieszkanie.
L jak LENNIK –Belgowie są zwariowani, ale to była moja ulubiona drużyna i najlepszy sezon, jaki przeżyłem.
M jak MATRIX – mój ulubiony film. Strzeżcie się déjà vu!
N jak NORWOOD – Potężne Niedźwiedzie!!! Mój rodzimy klub w Australii.
O jak OLYMPICS (OLIMPIADA) – w 2000 roku w ćwierćfinale Igrzysk Olimpijskich w Sydney graliśmy z Włochami. Na drugiej przerwie technicznej trzeciego seta wynik był 1:1 i 14:16 i graliśmy dobrze. Przez dwie sekundy marzyłem o półfinale. Większość ludzi nie dostaje takich dwóch sekund.
P jak PHIL JACKSON – mój idol wśród trenerów i autor najlepszej książki na temat trenowania jaka w ogóle powstała – „Sacred Hoops” („Święte Obręcze”).
Q jak QUEEN ELIZABETH II (KRÓLOWA ELŻBIETA DRUGA) – każdy brytyjski obywatel musi złożyć przysięgę królowej. Nawet ja.
R jak RECEIVER (ODBIORCA) – moja pozycja na boisku. Niestety to nie to, co umiem robić najlepiej.
S jak STELIO DEROCCO – człowiek, który dał mi szansę.
T jak TITLES (TYTUŁY) – tytuły, które zdobyłem, gdy grałem: 5 tytułów zdobytych na Mistrzostwach Australii + 1 w Niemczech.
U jak UNION (ZWIĄZEK) – jak Związek Farmerów, jak Mrożona Kawa tego związku. Kawa + mleko + lód = najlepszy napój na świecie. Jak już mówiłem, możesz opuścić Adelaide…
V jak VOLLEYBALL (SIATKÓWKA) – siatkówko, jestem ci wdzięczny za to, że mam co do garnka włożyć.
W jak TOMASZ WÓJTOWICZ – pierwszy polski siatkarz, o jakim słyszałem. Pamiętam, jak w 1976 roku, gdy byłem bardzo młody, oglądałem w szkole finał olimpiady w Montrealu. Chyba to wtedy przespałem…
X jak X-MAN – jak Uncanny (Niesamowity) X-man – australijska kapela rockowa. Mój ulubiony zespół, gdy miałem osiemnaście lat. Stare, dobre czasy…
Y jak YELLOW AND GREEN (ŻÓŁTY I ZIELONY) – kolory narodowe Australii i klubowe Jastrzębskiego Węgla. Zbieg okoliczności?
Z jak ŻORY – miasto, w którym mieszkam. Mój dom.
Moje A – Z z A(delaide) do Ż(or).
THE END?
It took me a while to work out what to write after the last less than optimal result. This game was a little worse so it took a little longer. After a couple of poor games, the Gdansk result gave us some cause for optimism particularly as Rzeszow has had some of its own problems. We began the match pretty well and led at both technical timeouts, and even at 23-23 it was still evenly poised. But when things aren’t going well, the first thing a team loses is the little bit of confidence it takes to push to win the decisive points. So instead of being aggressive to win the last points we became passive and played not to lose. Which, of course, did. But with our supporters really getting behind the team we bounced back to dominate the 2nd set. Everything we did with our block worked perfectly and they had no chance. The 3rd was close and we had a lead at 15-14 but they were able to bring on a couple of strong replacements and we made a couple of bad mistakes and it was over.
The other consequence of low confidence is a lower threshold of adversity it takes to become discouraged. It turns out that for us, at this moment, the threshold to become discouraged is exactly ‘falling behind 1-2′. The 4th set was fast. And not in a good way. Except in the sense that it was it was easily forgettable.
But the result is not forgettable our ’streak’ has hit hit four losses from five games (and five from seven).
Our first chance to turn it around is tomorrow when we host Fonte Bastardo from Portugal in the CEV Challenge Cup. The first game of the rest of our season, so to speak.
