BERLIN
The goals set for the upcoming year however are not less ambitious than those achieved in the last season. As the club presented their team’s sporting objectives, the team that last year made the Playoffs 12 also looked ahead to the up-coming campaign in the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League.
Seeking for the qualification for the national league final the team around head coach Mark Lebedew strives for direct qualification also for the next edition of the CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League. “After two national league titles won, anything less than the qualification for this season’s final, would be an irrational goal that hardly anybody would buy from us”, club President Kaweh Niroomand says about their Bundesliga campaign.
Internationally, the goals are again quite similar to those set last year: “We want to make it to the Playoffs and I think getting out of this group is possible”, Mark Lebedew says. However, the circumstances are not ideal for the fivefold German national champion: “The Drawing of Lots assigned us to a group that is much more difficult to stand than the one we got last year”, the Australian stresses. Especially the standouts Diatec TRENTINO and Arkas IZMIR are assumed to be tough nuts to crack. Also, the schedule bears a significant difference to last year: “We will have to play all three away matches first, before we can host the teams at our Volleyball temple Max-Schmeling-Halle, that’s going to be really difficult”, the mentor concluded.
His group however experienced only minor changes over the break: outside hitter Björn Höhne left the side of BERLIN to play for TV Ingersoll BÜHL, last year’s fourth-ranked team in the German Bundesliga, whilst middle-blocker Ricardo Galandi retired from competitive sport. The only “real” new entry is 21-year-old Serbian middle-blocker Srecko Lisinac, who impressed at the 2013 CEV VELUX EuroVolley in Denmark and Poland, where he was awarded “Best Blocker”. Finally, two youngsters Ruben Schott (outside hitter) and Florian Hecht (middle-blocker) complete the team roster, as they made it from the youth division to the main team.
To read more about this competition check out our CEV Champions League 2013/2014 M coverage page.
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