Dirk Westphal (r.) Still plays an important role for the Netzhoppers as an outside attacker. Perhaps more importantly, he was looking for a new coach and put the team together.
Foto: imago images/Beautiful Sports
Dirk Westphal has packed his summer quite full again. The former national volleyball player, who has been in the service of Bundesliga club Netzhoppers KW-Bestensee for several years, first went to the beaches of the nation in early summer to play beach volleyball after the end of the past season. He also took on the search for a coach and new players for his club. And in the past few weeks he also had to get together to form a new team with the newcomers in the hall. “I had a lot of work to do. From now on we will see whether I did it well or not, «says Westphal to the» nd «before the start of the men’s and women’s national leagues this Wednesday.
Eugen Benzel, manager at the women’s Bundesliga club SC Potsdam, is equally excited. Both Brandenburg clubs have a lot in common. In February, both the Netzhoppers and the Potsdam women surprisingly reached the cup final. Both lost and then had to put together completely new teams again. The latest successes have made this a little easier, even in Brandenburg, where clubs usually cannot attract high salaries.
Westphal was only able to keep six players in Bestensee, but he brought seven new ones to the Berlin bacon belt to complete the squad again. The upheaval was even more drastic for colleague Benzel: nine of the 14 players have just arrived in Potsdam. Most painful was probably the departure of the two pillars Lindsey Ruddins and Symone Speech. The Americans switched to the cup winners from Mecklenburg. “Schwerin simply offered more money,” says Benzel. “It’s a free competition, and whoever offers the highest wins. We couldn’t go along with that. “
But: The club found a replacement after just two weeks. “Now we’re even more broadly positioned. We wanted to have a lot of equal players so that there would be no dropping in level when someone switched or injured. I am convinced that we made it. And of course we would like to take bronze in the championship again, like in the last three years. “
However, these successes were not always a blessing for SC Potsdam. If you play well here, you will quickly find yourself on the wish lists of the big three from Schwerin, Dresden and Stuttgart. Potsdam wants to finally complete this trio as a top quartet. However, the players’ advisors continue to see the SC more as a sporty instantaneous water heater and consciously take the risk of only concluding one-year contracts here in order to conclude higher-value contracts elsewhere after a good season, including higher commissions. “That’s a problem for us,” says Benzel. After all, he has now been able to tie six players to the club for two years.
Short contract terms are not always wanted by the players alone, explains Bestensees player manager Westphal: “In our segment, interesting players cannot always be scouted live. Some play in small international leagues or still at college in the USA. You have to rely on video material and you never really know what you’re getting. ”So club managers like him prefer to conclude contracts for a probationary year, and then renew them later if everything goes well. Only then exactly the cat bites its tail again: “The better the players are with us, the greater the interest of other clubs in them”, Westphal knows – and the Netzhoppers can then only rarely keep up in the salary poker.
Nevertheless, successes such as participation in the cup final in 2021 have also made the club more attractive. A lot of good coaches from home and abroad would have signed up for the vacant coaching positions after the successful Belgian Christophe Acht left. Finally Westphal signed Tomasz Wasilkowski from Poland, who has already celebrated successes as assistant coach at the German champions BR Volleys. It has also become easier in negotiations with the players. “They see that we were in the cup final and conclude that we have a good squad and a good environment. Then you come to an agreement more quickly if the salary expectations were further apart beforehand, «Westphal stated.
In the end, however, it is an annual challenge »to prove again and again that we can put together a good team. We take this as a task, «says the 35-year-old. For the third summer in a row, KW-Bestensee had to fill half of the team. “To break this cycle, we would need more money,” says Westphal.
But that would only come about with continued success, which in turn would attract more and even more potent sponsors. But first of all, the Netzhoppers are relieved to know the worst of the corona pandemic behind them without having been driven into bankruptcy in the past two years like other Bundesliga clubs. “It was a struggle for survival in which we managed well and did not spend too much. We are therefore very optimistic that we will continue to offer Bundesliga volleyball. We are now clearly looking ahead, «says Westphal.
The association has a new name sponsor and a budget roughly on par with previous years. However, since some opponents were able to expand their budgets, the stability could ultimately amount to a step backwards. This Wednesday Westphal and Co. meet the United Volleys from Frankfurt. It will not only be the revenge game against the winner of that cup final in February, but also a reunion with the old coach eighth, who also took three players to the Main.
And who do the Potsdam women have to face? With all the parallels, it was only logical that the Brandenburg women had to go to Schwerin. So here, too, there is a reunion with former high achievers. You can also see it this way: There is hardly a better opportunity to prove that you have improved despite everything.
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