Butterflies from Dresden
Only a couple of weeks before the kick-off, the players around head coach Alexander Waibl are in a good mood. Last week Waibl and the so-called “butterflies” from Dresden traveled to Istanbul as they had received an invitation to spend some days there together with Germany head coach Giovanni Guidetti and the winner’s of last year’s CEV Volleyball Champions League, VakifBank Istanbul.
The teams worked together before having dinner in a splendid restaurant overlooking the Bosporus and the bridge that connects the European side of Turkey’s megalopolis with its section in Asia. Dresdner SC was joined there by the last addition to the group, namely Belarusian opposite Kristina Mikhailenko. She was signed by Dresdner SC after US American Meagan Ganzer was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Mikhailenko was in Kazakhstan and set to play there for the likes of the team from the city of Pavlodar, so she needed to fly back home to Minsk via Almaty and Tbilisi for a trip that lasted for 11 hours in order to get a visa and be able to finally join her new club.
With Shanice Marcelle having found her way from Canada to Dresden, head coach Waibl is finally able to work with the complete roster of 12 players signed for the coming season. “Things have been a bit difficult because it did take a long time until we could get together the complete group” he said. “We had to improvise but we also had some more time to work on technical drills as well as on tactics. We showed a major improvement during the last international tournament we played in Police, Poland”.
The group is extremely young with the average age standing at 22.3 years but it has got the potential to go for excellent results already this year with the domestic season set to start on October 16. Until then there will be more focus on team work and team building.
This coming Wednesday the members of the team will be presented to their fans and after that will join the traditional Dippold tournament in Dippoldiswalde scheduled for October 4-6 to continue with their preparations for the start of the 2013/2014 season.
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