Alba Berlin’s basketball women: More time in the spotlight

I think we are favorites. We are happy that we are in the play-offs, that we are first, that we are playing against Saarlouis. We’re happy all the time.” In order to enjoy her exhilaration at Alba Berlin, 30-year-old Stefanie Grigoleit postponed the end of her basketball career for a year. If everything goes well, and there is much to be said for it, she will say goodbye to the German champion Alba Berlin as champion at the end of April.

For the play-offs starting this Friday, last weekend’s cup tournament was something of a dress rehearsal. In the game for third place, the Berliners defeated hosts Saarlouis 83:69; Stefanie Grigoleit excelled with 28 points. On Friday and Sunday they and a good 2,500 spectators from Saarlouis will be welcomed to Berlin for the first two of a maximum of five quarter-final games.

In the two years since their promotion to the Bundesliga, the Alba women have played their way to the top with Stefanie Grigoleit. With fifteen home wins in a row (13 in the league, two in the cup), the last with a 21-point difference over the German champions from Keltern in Baden, Berlin has quickly established itself as the heavyweight of women’s basketball in Germany.

Lunch instead of after work

“We know that first place in the points round comes with responsibility,” says coach Cristo Cabreras. The Spaniard and the sporting management at Alba are not just concerned with titles. The rise of the women’s national team, which qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time, is virtually decoupled from what is happening in the league. Players like Stefanie Grigoleit, who played for eight different clubs before coming to Berlin, or the thrower Lucy Reuß, who has played for Alba for ten years and was promoted three times with the club, are exceptions. The club’s only international player is Theresa Simon, the only new signing for this season.

“We want German players not to necessarily have to go to America to develop individually. We are trying to prove that they can reach the next level here too,” said Cabreras: “We are investing time and resources to improve the possibilities. We are using more and more German players and giving them time in the spotlight.”

Alba’s team plays as quickly as it develops. The decision to professionalize women’s basketball was followed by the relocation of training from after work to midday, from the Schmeling Hall, where the youngsters practice, to the professional training center, which is equipped with first-class technology and personnel, near the Checkpoint Charly in Mitte. “Team psychologist, physiotherapy – Alba is a leader in everything. Even among the fans,” says Stefanie Grigoleit: “The fifty who accompanied us at the cup in Saarland created more atmosphere than anyone else in the hall.”

Time with girlfriends

In addition to Berlin, only Göttingen and Weißenfels are locations for the men’s Bundesliga where women play in the Bundesliga. Freiburg and Hanover, Leverkusen and Herne, Marburg and Osnabrück as well as wine presses in the Black Forest and Nördlingen are also there. One can imagine why talented players are happy to follow the call to college in America and to the leagues abroad. She always needed to be close to her family in Magdeburg, says Stefanie Grigoleit; That’s why she rejected offers from America. If Alba’s plans work, the route to Berlin will soon open up opportunities similar to those of crossing the Atlantic.

“First place in the table is the visible result of what we have achieved,” says lawyer and winger Lucy Reuß. She doesn’t want to mourn the missed chance to win the cup and thus the first title: “Just the fact that we were there makes us very proud.” The defeat against the eventual cup winners Hannover was a setback, she admits. It is also a signal to the inexperienced Berlin team: “There is still a lot of work to do.” The players make up for their inexperience with solidarity. The team stayed together after promotion; only two reinforcements were added. “It’s nice,” says Lucy Reuß, “to meet my friends in the basketball hall and play with them.”

Michael Reinsch, Berlin Published/Updated: Thorsten Winter Published/Updated: A comment from Thorsten Winter Published/Updated: Recommendations: 5

Cabreras contradicts romantic ideas. His players didn’t get anything for free, he says. “Are we favorites? We as a team love the challenge,” he says: “We have shown that the work in training pays off. Everything is possible.”