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Tomorrow the Russian team will play a key match on the way to the semi-finals
The Russian national volleyball team is very close to the defining matches of the World Volleyball Championship taking place in Japan. Zoran Gajic's team will only be satisfied with a win in tomorrow's match with the Poles, after which they will need to get the better of the World Cup hosts. And the Russians won the previous two matches of the second stage without losing a single set to the national teams of Argentina - 3:0 (25:18, 25:20, 25:14) and Puerto Rico - 3:0 (25:20, 25 :15, 25:16).The championship leaves a strange impression. At least for us journalists: the number of peculiar voids completely absorbs the time of real action. Maybe a similar effect is created by the aura of the provincial Sendai, but, honestly, it’s still a matter of the level of the teams. An hour and a half, including the press conference, and you are free until the next game, which also does not initially carry any intrigue. In fact, it turns out that our team met its first serious opponent Serbia and Montenegro on the opening day of the tournament, November 17, and the next difficult match will be played with the Poles eleven (!) days later.
Based on this, we have to talk about the Russian team’s performance with caution. On the one hand, the team has not completed its only test yet, on the other hand, it is noticeable how the players improve from match to match. What forces us to be more reserved in our assessments is the complete absence of difficulties. After the match with the Serbs, there was only one fighting ending to the game with Tunisia (29:27). Of course, this is the merit of our players, who literally crush the resistance of their opponents. However, there are qualitatively different teams at the championship, where they will need to play at their maximum.
Our team coach Zoran Gajic in his post-match comments invariably thanks the team for their professionalism. More precisely, for the ability to play collectedly and with enthusiasm against an opponent who, by definition, does not inspire enthusiasm. There were only three European teams in our half of the tournament bracket. They, in fact, will compete for two spots in the semifinals among themselves. The rest initially faced the fate of not interfering with the “adult guys” and enjoying meetings with each other. Naturally, such volleyball cannot interest fans, and volleyball officials should rethink the format of the championship.
The Russian national team began the second round with a duel with the Argentine national team, to which, if it ever lost, then probably only the most advanced volleyball statistician could tell about the last such case. In Argentina, the statistics are better than ours, but the current generation of this team, represented by Pablo Meana and Alejandro Spajic, does not remember victories over the Russians. By the way, the Argentine team was accommodated on the same floor as the Vremya Novostey correspondent and, judging by the noise that was walking along the corridor until one in the morning, the South Americans were clearly not in the mood to break statistics that were unpleasant for themselves. Most likely, they clearly realized the futility of this, since among the world-class players they only have the aforementioned Meana, Spajic and Marcos Milinkovic, who has lost his former power. Not enough for the Russian team. Therefore, if anything remains in the memory of this match, it is the idyllic picture observed immediately after the post-match handshake. Meana, Spayich, Kosarev and Verbov gathered in a circle near the net and talked animatedly for a long time, clearly remembering the blessed times of playing together for Lokomotiv-Belogorye Belgorod.
In general, the first two days of the second round for our team were marked not only by the struggle to confirm their own professionalism, but also with the task of beating the Poles in the struggle for the best ratio of goals won and lost. After all, if we defeat them tomorrow, then this indicator will become decisive in identifying the semi-finalist. After the first stage, we lost to the Polish team by 11 goals, but after just one day of joint performances here in Sendai, we eliminated this handicap. A day later we managed to win four more goals. So now everything is in the hands of the Russian team.
As for the match with Puerto Rico, it will go down in history as the first official match between the Russians and this team. Initially, it was clear that it was necessary to neutralize the championship's top scorer, Hector Soto. This player's performance was impressive - 26.5 points per game on average with 55% successful attacks. However, by the first technical break it became clear that Soto was a typical “first guy in the village.” His first two attacks met our block, after which the intrigue of the match was exhausted. As a result, the Puerto Rican leader scored only 11 points with 38% of successful attacks.