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New coaches of men's and women's volleyball teams named
At a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation held yesterday in Moscow, decisions were made on the appointment of new head coaches of the national teams - men's and women's in the classical version of the game and in whip volley. Balakovo NPP coach Vladimir Kuzyutkin will work with the girls, and the Italian Daniele Bagnoli from the capital’s Dynamo will become the “helmsman” of the men’s team. American specialist Dane Seljnik has been confirmed as the head beach volleyball coach.If Bagnoli was the only candidate, then four specialists initially applied for the post of coach of the women's team. The initial elimination occurred at a meeting of the VFW coaching council at the end of January. Rishat Gilyazutdinov (Lipetsk Indesit) and Pavel Borsch, who heads the men's club of the major league "A" Dynamo-Yantar (Kaliningrad), left the race. Yesterday, Kuzyutkin and Vadim Pankov (Zarechye-Odintsovo) presented their programs to the presidium. As a result of the voting, Kuzyutkin won with a slight advantage. With five abstentions, eight members of the presidium voted for Pankov, and 12 voted for his more experienced opponent. Immediately after the meeting, Kuzyutkin said that he would make Pankov an offer to be his assistant. As for Bagnoli and Seljnik, their candidacies were approved unanimously.
“The presidium was held in a friendly atmosphere,” Stanislav Shevchenko, first vice-president of the VFW, said in an interview with a Vremya Novostey correspondent. - Those who spoke during the debate spoke without strain, expressing constructive things. We signed contracts with all three new mentors for two years. The tasks set for them are the following: the men's team - to achieve victory at the 2009 European Championship and reach the final match of the 2010 World Championship; the women's team is to take prizes at these tournaments. Seljnik, one of the world's strongest whip-willing specialists, said that he sees the prospect of winning gold at the London 2012 Olympic tournament. Bagnoli and Kuzyutkin will be released as national team coaches. They will work at their clubs until the end of this season, after which they must fully concentrate on the national teams.”
Bagnoli’s main program thesis was something like this: “In Russia there are already very strong performers who can give the highest results. It is necessary to improve some weaknesses, in particular, to strengthen the game in defense and reception.” The Italian himself, who has won more than three dozen of the most important titles at the club level (European cups, domestic competitions in Italy and Russia), admitted that being appointed to the position of head coach of the national team is his long-time dream. “Even without knowing what the federation’s task would be, I definitely decided for myself - I need to win the upcoming European Championships in the fall,” said Bagnoli. - I would consider any other result a failure. One of my assistants will definitely be a Russian coach. During my time at Dynamo, I thoroughly studied the capabilities of Super League players, and now in this regard I have a much better starting position than if such an appointment had happened two years ago.”
The choice of Kuzyutkin by the presidium was to some extent a surprise, because Pankov had already temporarily led the team at the September qualifying tournament for the 2009 World Grand Prix and completed the main task. As we found out in conversations with the participants of the presidium, among those who supported Kuzyutkin’s candidacy was the master of our coaching department, Nikolai Karpol, who led the national teams of the USSR and Russia for many years.
Stanislav Shevchenko explained the motivation of the majority of those who voted: “Currently, the country’s main team is undergoing a process of generational change. At this difficult stage, the team needs a more experienced specialist, which is Kuzyutkin. His strengths are his ability to maintain high internal discipline in the team; he offers a large amount of training work. Now it is important to develop young players who could become new stars. The decision of the presidium does not at all mean that Pankov’s qualifications are not enough, it’s just that in this particular situation, Kuzyutkin’s candidacy is the most suitable.” Also, the first vice-president of the VFW noted that all appointments of assistants and assistants to the coaching staff of the men's and women's teams will be controlled and approved by the federation.
Kuzyutkin made it clear: there will be no foreign specialists in his circle, only Russians. The new coach of the women's team, born in 1946, during his long career worked with both the weaker sex and men. In the mid-1980s, he brought the Sverdlovsk Uralenergomash from the bottom of the second division to the major league. He spent ten seasons (1989-1999) in Turkey, leading the volleyball players of the Emlakbank, Ekzachibashi and Gunesh Vakifbank clubs to the title of national champion and to the podium. After returning to Russia, he worked in Belgorod and Nizhnevartovsk, last summer he took over the Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant.
Dane Seljnik has unquestioned authority in the world of whip-will. It was he who trained two-time Olympic champions Misty May-Trenor and Kerry Walsh, and in the last four-year cycle he worked in China, and the result was “silver” and “bronze” for the Chinese women’s pairs at the 2008 Summer Games. Seljnik spoke about his priorities in his new position: “The players need to instill the understanding that they must move around the court and think as a single unit during the match. So far I don’t clearly see such a command mind. Of course, it will take Russian beachgoers some time to adapt to my philosophy of play. We will be preparing for the coming season on the beaches of California.” It’s interesting that Selzhnik’s great-grandmother and great-grandfather moved to America from Minsk, so he essentially has a Belarusian surname.