Translated material
Champions of the fifth games
The Russians won the tiebreaker for the eighth time in a row
The first day of the European qualifying tournament for the 2007 World Grand Prix in Varna, Bulgaria, was marked by three dramatic fights, the outcome of which was decided in the fifth games. The Russian team also did not avoid a tiebreaker. Our girls met the most serious resistance from the national team of Serbia and Montenegro, twice found themselves in the role of catching up, but both times they equalized the match score in sets, and won the tiebreaker with a solid margin of safety - 3:2 (22:25, 25:17, 21:25, 25:18, 15:8).In another match of our group a sensation occurred. The Turkish women won a strong-willed victory over the current world champions, the Italians - 3:2 (20:25, 22:25, 25:20, 25:19, 15:12). Yesterday late in the evening, Moscow time, the Russians met with the offenders of the Azura Squadra, and today they complete the preliminary stage with a battle with Italy. In the second quartet, the Poland-Holland game followed approximately the same scenario as the Turkish-Italian thriller. The 2005 European champions are now caught up in personnel problems and have not shown a game that corresponds to their nominal status as the best team of the Old World for a long time. For various reasons, the team is missing several volleyball players from the “golden” squad, including the best player in Europe in 2003, Malgorzata Hlinka. The series of failures that began at the 2006 Grand Prix continued in Varna. The Poles were never able to put the finishing touches on the team from the Land of Tulips, although they prevailed in the first two games - 2:3 (30:28, 25:22, 22:25, 26:28, 10:15).
And finally, the Bulgaria-Azerbaijan meeting, which started an hour late (due to three previous marathon matches), ended in defeat for the hosts - 0:3 (21:25, 20:25, 18:25). The head coach of the Bulgarians, Miroslav Zhivkov, said that in the process of preparing for the tournament, 120 (!) hours of video footage of the games of the Azerbaijani national team over the last three seasons were watched. As we see, such a painstaking study of the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses led to nothing.
As for our rival Serbia and Montenegro, this team is now on the rise, having made it to the World Cup for the first time since 1978. The last meeting had special implications for the head coach of the Russians, Italian Giovanni Caprara. After all, it was against Serbia at the very end of spring last year that our team played the first match under his leadership and lost with a score of 0:3 at the international tournament in Courmayer (Italy). Since then, the paths of the two teams have not crossed, and now the revenge has finally taken place.
In the starting lineup, Caprara included setter Marina Akulova, finishing players Elena Godina and Natalya Safronova, diagonal Ekaterina Gamova, blockers Yulia Merkulova and Maria Borodakova. The role of libero is played by Svetlana Kryuchkova. Caprara explained the absence of one of the team leaders Lyubov Sokolova in the debut as follows: “She had a hard week before this tournament, and I decided to give her the opportunity to rest a little. Besides, we have enough strong players in this position.”
But without the help of Sokolova, the Russians would hardly have been able to win this match. If she came on as a substitute in the first, second and third games, then she started the last two already at the start. Moreover, Sokolova served well - there were no aces, however, but when the only foreign player in our team put the ball into play, the Serbs had great difficulty in receiving, and the attacks turned out to be indistinct. Several times when Sokolova went to the service line, Russia won four or five points in a row, including in the tiebreaker.
Akulova passed almost the entire match, with the exception of replacing Marina Sheshenina in the third set, the beginning of which was extremely unsuccessful for the Russians - 0:4. In the fourth game, the Serbians already looked tired, and our team began to feel real sportive anger. The winners completely surpassed their opponents on the block - 18:7. It was especially difficult for the Serbians when Gamova and Merkulova, both two meters tall, found themselves at the net. Gamova eventually became the best scorer of the meeting - 28 points, seven of which she scored on the block and a couple more times directly from the serve.
“The match turned out to be very difficult for us, but I wouldn’t blame it on fatigue after the Grand Prix or complain about the busy schedule of international competitions,” Giovanni Caprara told Vremya Novostei correspondent after the match. - Firstly, Serbia and Montenegro have recently become a strong and well-organized team, and secondly, my players made a lot of technical mistakes. Still, I am very pleased that we managed to win a match in which we were constantly behind in the score. Our volleyball players showed character, acted on the court with a great desire to win, and played very emotionally. This is the main thing now."
Caprara is absolutely right about the character. The Russians have won a five-game match for the eighth time in a row. Before that, at the end of July - beginning of August, they upset Italy three times in control sparrings, then, as part of the Grand Prix, they prevailed in protracted meetings over Azerbaijan, Poland, Korea and again Italy. It's hard to remember such an impressive series.