spized Goes Professional Volleyball: L.E. Volleys Leipzig Club Portrait

L.E. Volleys have only been around since 2009. They were founded as a new club with no financial ties to their predecessor following the insolvency of VC Leipzig. From those beginnings, the club has grown to nearly 400 members and features over 20 teams competing across all levels, from recreational leagues to the 2nd Bundesliga. It is the only club in Leipzig with a men's team in the second tier and has served as Saxony's state training centre for men's volleyball as well as a talent centre for women's volleyball since its inception.

The club states its mission with direct clarity: a clear focus on performance-oriented volleyball, driven by a strategy to surround seasoned veterans with as many young prospects as possible. Anyone in Leipzig looking to play ambitious volleyball can hardly get past L.E. Volleys, says team manager Axel Roscher — "whether girls or boys."

On the court, the first team finished last season in seventh place out of 13 in the Southern Division, picking up 13 victories from 24 matches. Head coach Jan Pretscheck leads the team, with home matches played at the Sporthalle Brüderstraße in the heart of Leipzig. Their start to the new campaign was a success: against Blue Volleys Gotha, the reigning division champions, Leipzig secured a 3–2 victory in front of a home crowd — bouncing back after dropping the first set, taking a 2–1 lead, and sealing it 15–12 in the deciding fifth set.

However, anyone associating "the second highest tier of German volleyball" with full-time professional setups would be mistaken in this case. As Roscher himself points out:

"In our youth setup, we do have full-time staff — the sports academy and a full-time head of the training centre. But the 2nd Bundesliga side is run on a purely voluntary basis. We have no professional players. Everyone involved on matchday, including myself as team manager: we are all volunteers."

By his estimate, over 90 percent of the organisation and management is carried out voluntarily. He is well aware that things look different elsewhere: in the West, there are large multi-sport clubs with their own administrative offices. He cites ASV Dachau, which unites 18 sports under one roof. In the East, by contrast, clubs tend to be smaller setups.

Roscher himself played over 15 years in the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga as an outside hitter and libero — including spells at Stollberg, Chemnitz, and Markranstädt — and was part of a championship-winning side in 2014. Since 2021, he has shifted his focus to management and describes the difference like this:

"As a player, you have a ritual: you arrive at the arena, get changed, warm up, and play. As a manager, you face far more issues and a lot more improvisation on matchday. How many people are staffing the ticket office? The referee has a last-minute issue. Then I attend the team meeting. And sometimes people ask me: why did we lose?"

On top of that, there is everything players never notice: "You get much more involved in private matters. One player needs a job, another is finishing school." He rarely plays himself these days. "I hold back when it comes to playing. The itch is still there, but nowadays I only get to play against the sponsors."

As respectable as a mid-table finish in the second tier is, it is the youth section that makes headlines at this club. The 2025/26 season yielded six national podium finishes, two of which were titles: gold at the U18 German Championships in Amberg, defeating VV Humann Essen in the final; silver with the U14s in Dachau, where the final was lost by the narrowest of margins in the tie-break (13–15); bronze with the U20s in Saarbrücken, marking the club's first podium in this age category for eight years; bronze with the U16s in Dresden; and silver at the Federal Cup (Bundespokal), featuring seven Leipzig athletes in the Saxony selection squad.

The second title came on the sand. At the German U15 Beach Volleyball Championships in late June in Freiburg, played in blistering heat near 40 degrees, the Leipzig youngsters clinched gold. The beach volleyball setup is Roscher's personal domain — he manages the club's beach training and beach camps, and had coached the boys himself ahead of the tournament. The title itself was secured under the guidance of the local U16 coaches. He was not on the sideline as a coach, but watching from the sidelines as a father to his son Henry, who was competing.

The U18 title was a successful title defence and far from the first indoor triumph: following the club's maiden German championship title in 2023 with the U18s, further national titles followed with the U14s in 2024, the U16s in 2025, and back-to-back U18 titles in 2025 and 2026. "You could almost say we've gotten a bit spoiled," says Roscher.

These achievements are no coincidence, but the result of structures that extend far beyond normal club operations. Athletes at the sports academy train twice daily, in the morning and evening. The club is fully integrated into the city's sports school system and regularly supplies players to the Saxony selection team. In the summer, the Leipzig Sports Gymnasium team even represented Germany at the World School Volleyball Championship in China, having qualified by winning the national final of 'Jugend trainiert für Olympia' — a match Roscher watched via live stream alongside his beach camp participants.

A decision made last spring speaks volumes about the club's priorities. At the end of April, the playing rights for Leipzig's Third Division women's team were transferred to Neuseenland-Volleys Markkleeberg. From the outside, this might look like a retreat. Roscher firmly disagrees: "Relinquishing it? Not at all." Both clubs met to agree on a joint approach for handling players, coaching staff, and sponsors. "We would have loved to keep the team, but in our case, it would have meant stepping down below the third tier."

The reasoning behind the move comes down to capacity limits rather than a shift in priorities: "As L.E. Volleys, we simply cannot develop both the men's and women's setups to a point where we field two Bundesliga teams." The club maintained its third-tier women's team for three years, but as the squad and coaching staff aimed higher, Markkleeberg was developing rapidly right on their doorstep. The goal for the women's setup is now the Regional League (4th division), backed by the club's own young coaching talent. Anyone striving for a higher level moves on to Markkleeberg, Grimma, or Dresden, home to the national women's training centre.

Demand is undoubtedly there. What holds the club back is stated plainly by Roscher: hall availability and capacity. Several youth groups have reached maximum capacity, despite the venue being conveniently located and easily accessible for local families.

On top of that comes a dilemma arising from their own success. As a state training centre and sports academy, the club must develop players for the association, with top talents frequently being delegated elsewhere. "We now produce talents of such high calibre that they move on to national centres in Frankfurt or Berlin," says Roscher. "At that point, they step away from the club to forge their own path. It is something we simply have to live with."

Just how tangible this is, he is currently experiencing firsthand within his own family: his son Julius, named MVP at the U20 National Championships, is moving to VCO Berlin in the 1st Bundesliga — a premier youth development initiative at the national training centre that allows top German talents to gain early experience in senior competition.

The club has, however, identified a leverage point to retain other players longer: through the sports academy, athletes can extend their schooling by an extra year up to the 13th grade, whereas twelve years is otherwise the standard in Saxony. Currently, five or six students are taking advantage of this option. The result is an additional year to manage their transition into senior volleyball within their home club.

And this is where the two strands of this portrait come together. It is not just the first team playing in spized: the women's side, the Regional League team, and several youth teams now wear the exact same kits, with further sets for older age groups currently being replaced.

League regulations do make a difference when it comes to kitting out the teams. The Bundesliga squad receives new kit every year, featuring player names on the back. In the lower divisions, the club provides each team with a single kit set designed to last over several years.

The regulations did raise a few questions in the first year. These concerned the legibility of back numbers — specifically numbers one and seven — as well as the libero shirt, which had to be remade. It was not the club that noticed this, but the referees. Crucially, two kit sets cannot simply invert the same colour scheme; they must be distinctively contrastable. By the second season, all issues were resolved. The yellow shirts seen in some photos, by the way, are not a third kit option, but the dedicated libero set.

The kit design was not decided behind closed doors by the board: the club held an open design tender where members could vote on submissions, followed by an evaluation from a small panel. The final fine-tuning was then completed in collaboration with Indoortrends and ourselves. What the board does decide is the financial aspect — specifically order volumes.

When it came to pricing, the objective was crystal clear: "We are not in the football shirt price range," says Roscher. "The target was a shirt that doesn't cost €120, but rather €30 or €40. It's a performance sports shirt, and that is a fair price." Members wanting their own personalised shirt with name and number can order it via the clubhouse through Indoortrends — the teamwear specialist through whom our contact was initially established. Reorders now take roughly three weeks from lead time to delivery, which was the main reason the club opted for a bespoke club kit in the first place.

Even here, the final chapter is yet to be written. The plan, according to Roscher, is to eventually equip the entire club in a unified design, at least for match kits. Children's sizes are available; it is purely a matter of budget — phased across the upcoming seasons.

For us at spized, this serves as validation: a club that runs a 2nd Bundesliga team on a voluntary basis while simultaneously competing for national championships across five age groups views kit supply differently than a single team would. Reorderable over years, affordable for families, and unified across more than 20 teams. The first victory of the season is under their belt. We wish L.E. Volleys a successful campaign and the youth teams every success with their next collection of medals.