Translated material
Soviet retro
Seoul 1988 Olympic champion won Russian gold as part of Dynamo
The next championship of the Women's Super League ended with the victory of the capital's Dynamo. For the third time, the champion was determined in a full-fledged playoff, and for the first time, to determine the winner of the “gold” in the super final series, it was necessary to play all five matches provided for by the regulations. The decisive meeting took place last Saturday at the Druzhba universal sports hall in Luzhniki. Dynamo was deprived of the championship title by Zarechye-Odintsovo - 3:1 (25:17, 26:24, 15:25, 25:19). The previous games of this confrontation brought the following results: 1:3 and 3:0 in the capital, 2:3 and 3:1 in Odintsovo.The opponents had players of approximately equal class in all positions. Dynamo player Ekaterina Gamova and Zarechenskaya Lyubov Sokolova are among the strongest strikers in the world, blocking Muscovites Maria Borisenko and her colleague from Odintsov Yulia Merkulova are the 2006 world champions. The Italian Simona Gioli and the Brazilian Walevska, who play in these teams as first-rate forwards, are winners of many different individual titles, both team and individual. This list goes on and on. The equality of forces predetermined the duration of the super final series.
The Blue and White became national champions for the 17th time, including the third in Russian history. The fifth match was excellently played by Ukrainian volleyball graduate and Dynamo finisher Natalya Goncharova, who will only be able to play for the Russian national team next season. Muscovite setter Irina Kirillova, who celebrated her 44th birthday (!) on the eve of the fifth game, deserves great admiration. For the past two years, many of her current partners have been forced to call this legendary player nothing more than Irina Vladimirovna, since she worked on the coaching staff of the national team as an assistant to the former “helmsman” of the country’s main team, Giovanni Caprara.
Having expressed a desire to resume her playing career at Dynamo, 1988 Seoul Olympic champion Kirillova confronted the club management with a difficult choice. By that time, the “blue and white” had already signed Gioli and the Dutchwoman Stalens, choosing a limit on foreign players (according to the regulations, no more than two in the application). After the collapse of the USSR, Irina Kirillova played for the Croatian national team for some time and cannot change her sports citizenship a second time, therefore, paradoxically, she is also considered a foreign volleyball player. Dynamo decided to refuse the services of the Dutch girl, and, as life has shown, this decision in this situation was absolutely correct. Kirillova spent the season smoothly and reliably, made a variety of passes, took on the role of leader as the most experienced player and did a lot to maintain morale in the team. In the Final Four of the Champions League, Irina received an individual prize as the best setter.
It’s a paradox, but there are no equals in Kirillova’s skill in Russia now. In the Super League, she looked preferable to other passers, and even those who are on the list of candidates for the national team. Thanks to her excellent physical readiness, the age of our great setter was not felt at all. An amazing, mind-blowing fact - the first time she stood on the podium of the national championship was exactly a quarter of a century ago, when she played for Sverdlovsk Uralochka. During her career, Irina competed in the championships of the USSR, Russia, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Brazil and Italy. Kirillova already has a dozen gold medals in the mentioned national competitions.
The current coach of the “blue and white” Valery Losev, who replaced Leonid Zaiko before the start of the season (he took the position of assistant to the club’s general director), spent his playing career in the role of a setter. Therefore, he easily managed to find a common language with Kirillova. Irina was the ideal conductor of coaching ideas on the court. Losev worked as Zaiko’s assistant at CSKA for many years, and after he began coaching master teams on his own, he is on an upward trajectory. With the now defunct CSKA, he immediately sensationally won the Russian Cup, brought the “red-blues” to the final of the European tournament and took “silver” in the national championship. Having led Dynamo, he returned the lost championship to the blue and white.
The teams of the Volleyball Center of the Moscow Region, under whose wings include the men's Iskra and the women's Zarechye, can be called the main losers of the season. Having achieved relative, but not the desired success in the Super League (silver medals), these clubs did not receive tickets to the Champions League, as they went to the strongest teams in the country and the winners of the national Cup. In general, the distribution of places in continental tournaments for women was non-standard. “University-Tekhnolog”, which won the National Cup, finished seventh in the super league, so the window to the Old World for Omsk “Spartak”, which took fifth place, is closed. “Zarechye-Odintsovo” and the bronze medalist “Uralochka-NTMK” will participate in the EKV Cup, while Khabarovsk “Nugget” will take part in the Challenge Cup, expanding the geography of the third most important tournament to the maximum possible.
Next season, the Super League will undergo serious dynamism. In addition to the Muscovites and the Dynamo-Yantar team, the best clubs based on the results of the May final tournament of the Major League A, Dynamo (Kazan) and Dynamo (Krasnodar), will compete in the elite.