Translated material
Nothing personal
The Russians defeated the countrymen of their coach Zoran Gajic
The first match of the final stage of the World League in Moscow ended successfully for the hosts. Zoran Gajic's team prevailed over the team of his compatriots. The Serbia and Montenegro team was defeated with a score of 3:0 (25:20, 26:24, 25:18).The tournament started with a sensation. In the opening match, the Bulgarians unexpectedly beat the winner of all the last major tournaments, Brazil - 3:0 (25:17, 25:23, 25:20). On the last day of the preliminary stage, the South Americans will have to meet with our volleyball players, and surely the reigning champions of the planet, the Olympic Games and the World League will appear on Friday evening in the role of a wounded beast. Against the Russians and the result of the first match between teams from different groups, legalized by unusual regulations. Our neighbors in the triple “E”, the French, in a bitter struggle, defeated the holders of the continental “gold”, the Italians - 3:2 (25:18, 23:25, 23:25, 25:20, 15:11).
The Brazilians' failure is also surprising in that at the preliminary stage they did not lose a single point, even if they were not up against the strongest opponents. Brazil's top seven players were excused from the low-key home game against Portugal and held a focused training camp in Italy in preparation for the World League finals. Nevertheless, the Brazilians were powerless in the meeting with Bulgaria. Just 75 minutes was enough for the European team to outright defeat the South Americans with a total advantage of 15 goals. Let us explain once again that since last year at world tournaments, when distributing places for participants in any group tournaments, the primary criterion in case of equality of points is not the ratio of games, as it was before, but the ratio of game points. Naturally, it is more convenient for fans to operate not with the coefficient obtained as a result of division with three digits after the decimal point, but with the goal difference. The semantic difference here is insignificant.
Among the Bulgarians, the most productive were Vladimir Nikolov (16 points) and the volleyball player of the starting six of the Russian champion Dynamo Moscow, Matei Kaziiski (14). For the Brazilians, none of the players managed to win more than six goals for their team. The case is extremely rare for competitions of this level. We can only regret that only 700 spectators watched this unique match. It’s not that Muscovites are not interested in volleyball, it’s just that the match started during working hours, at two o’clock in the afternoon, and besides, yesterday the capital’s sports fans were more interested in football.
The French, although they defeated Italy only in the fifth game, secured a solid final goal difference of “+12”. It is possible that Russia and France will finish in Group E with the same number of points, and then the true cost of the outcome of each game episode will become clear. The Azzurra Squadra has serious personnel problems. Due to injuries, finishers Alberto Chizolla and Novy Urengoy “Fakel” newcomer Matej Chernich, the “base” volleyball players at the gold medal for Italy at Euro 2005, are not playing in Moscow.
The current coach of the Russian national team led the team of his country (then called Yugoslavia) to the “gold” of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. But two years later, on the eve of the world championship, having worked with the team in the World League, Gayich parted ways with the national squad against his own will. The coach had disagreements with the leaders of the national federation. It seems that the conflict was too serious, since Gajic’s services were refused on the eve of the World Cup, which, by the way, Serbia and Montenegro had already failed, remaining below the medal list.
Yesterday, Gayich faced his home team for the first time as the “steering” of the Russians. So there was enough additional intrigue in this meeting. The match scenario was also interesting. If in the first set the teams often made mistakes and there was no particularly high-quality volleyball, then later the level of play increased. In the second and third games, it is necessary to highlight two key segments, during which the Russians, being significantly behind in the score, made stunning breakthroughs of seven and six goals won in a row.
Although Gayich is not considered a supporter of using power serves, our volleyball players scored many important points precisely after powerful hits while performing this important technical element. Semyon Poltavsky, Sergei Tetyukhin, Alexey Kazakov have aces. Tonight, Gajic's team meets the French and can secure their place in the semi-finals ahead of schedule.