Again three competitions this season – Talent Jan Haller joins the team
RESV Lahn-Dill set lots of records in its 19-year history in the first german league. After staying two years in the RBBL from 1987 on and then consecutively from 1994 until today, now the team is heading to steal the top-spot in the "All-Time-Ranking" of german wheelchair-basketball from the USC Munich.
Still the team from Wetzlar is seeded four wins behind Munich but as far as the team wants to defend both german titles this season, it seems pretty likely that this season will bring the german "all-time"-record to Wetzlar. Although with eight german championships Wetzlar will not be able to beat the 13 german titles of Munich this year.
Sporting Goals
Obviously defending the two german titles is the main goal for RSV Lahn-Dill to confirm its reputation in german wheelchair-basketball for the fans, the media and the economy.
But who knows the team from Wetzlar is sure about the fact that the sting that stitched by losing this year´s final match of the Champions-Cup against Istanbul ist still aching and needs to be removed hopefully next May.
New arrival Jan Haller
Regardless of the goals in the close future, RSV Lahn-Dill also always keeps an eye on planning further. "Much more important than the short dated success in this season is, that we can be as well positioned as we are now in five years too.", Manager Andreas Joneck points out clearly why there was doubt in taking the chance to sign german talent Jan Haller, who already is a german national-team player. "Jan is a german low-pointer who has great talent and can already show his skills on a great level", German Natinalcoach and RSV-Headcoach Nicolai Zeltinger says about his new player on the team.
So RSV Lahn-Dill heads into the season with Jan Haller, Felix Schell, Thomas Böhme and Steve Serio as four very talented young key-players, whose oldest is Serio with only 24 years of age. "This is our option for the future!", Zeltinger quotes regarding the high continuity that RSV Lahn-Dill shows over the years in its teams; no one is a better example for this than the 37-year old team-captain Joey Johnson from Canada who starts in his 9th season with the RSV.
Economic challange
Another part of the RSV-puzzle is the development in economical ways. After main sponsor STADA reduced its financial support this year, it is now important to find more new ways for the brand RSV Lahn-Dill. „We a re very thankful for everythin STADA did for us during the last 16 years and it is absolutely legitimate for them to reduce their engagement.“,Manager Joneck quotes.
Regardless to this financial challage the sponsoring-family of RSV Lahn-Dill grew this summer again. "We really appreciate the support of our partners and the high reputation of our sport in our region", lawyer Sven Köppe points out, who completes together with Jörg Fink and Sebastian Mende the Management-team of RSV Lahn-Dill.
The League
It might be very likely that it will comeagain to a classic showdown against the team from Zwickau at the end of the next season, but the RBBL is growing in other cities too. The Cologne 99ers and this year also the Trier Dolphins sound the attack on the top-spots of the league. At Trier there will be six Canadians and one Australian in the team next season, completed with Germany´s top-scorer Dirk Passiwan. There is no question about the quality here. Also the new team in the league RSB Team Thüringen seems to be noteworthy. At Zwickau the roster changed dramatically: Coach and player Piotr Luszynski left the team to join Galatasaray Istanbul is the hardest loss for Zwickau but with Alexander Kharchenkov a new coach joins the team from Sachsen and US-Nationalteam-player Joe Chambers, the Iranian Marteza Gharibloo and the Czech Adam Erben will bring a lot of physical strength to the team.