Translated material
Boomerang Strike
Dynamo-TTG returns to Odintsovo after a domestic fiasco
Events in the semi-final series of the men's national championship "Dynamo-TTG" - "Iskra" are developing unpredictably. Having won twice on the road in Odintsovo, Viktor Sidelnikov’s team was going to secure the right to play matches for the “gold” on their site with the clear favorite of another confrontation - the capital’s Dynamo, but an unexpected injury to the main Kazan passer Lloy Ball sharply weakened the potential of the richest club in the world. Home defeats cannot be described as anything other than a deafening fiasco, given the stellar composition of Dynamo-TTG - Saturday's 1:3 (21:25, 25:22, 26:28, 18:25) and an even more shocking Sunday failure 0: 3 (19:25, 21:25, 22:25).An American setter, Ball, who is unique in terms of physical characteristics (his height is 205 cm - a huge rarity for players of this role), during training the day before the third match of the series, while trying to block a hit from a teammate during a normal two-way game, he landed unsuccessfully on the floor and felt pain. Doctors discovered a displacement of one of the vertebral discs. It would seem that Ball's temporary disability is not such a big problem for a team that has a second world-class setter - national team veteran Vadim Khamuttskikh. The multiple national champion as part of the Belgorod Lokomotiv-Belogorye accepted the offer from Kazan last summer and signed the largest contract in his career here.
It was assumed that Khamuttskikh would be the second setter after Ball and his help would be needed either in cases where the American’s game did not go well, when he was tired, or in emergency situations. Last week, just such a force majeure occurred, but the replacement of the dispatcher greatly affected the Dynamo-TTG game in a negative way. And the point is not at all whether Vadim plays worse or better than his overseas colleague. They interact with partners differently. Thanks to his height, Ball makes quick passes at a completely different height than the ex-Belgorod resident. In addition, Vadim was a clear leader at the club and national team level for many years, so he was not used to entering the game and solving problems as number two.
In meetings with Iskra, Vadim was almost unable to organize effective attacks at the first tempo, although they were played perfectly with blocker Andrei Egorchev in Belgorod. Out of long-standing habit, Khamuttskikh loaded his long-time partner and good friend Sergei Tetyukhin a lot with balls, but he spent most of the season healing from an injury and is now somewhat inferior in functional readiness to himself two or a year ago. Be that as it may, the unexpected turn in the semifinal series only benefits volleyball fans. The decisive, fifth match "Iskra" - "Dynamo-TTG" will take place on April 26.
The winner of the CEV Cup “Fakel” played an excellent match against “Dynamo” on Saturday. The representatives of the old guard played well - the winners of the 1999 World Cup, diagonal forward Roman Yakovlev (26 points) and finisher Ilya Savelyev (19), who showed a very solid percentage of attack efficiency in attack (65%). Volleyball players from both teams demonstrated powerful serves and baffled the receivers. Savelyev had four aces, and Dynamo's top scorer Semyon Poltavsky scored three points when putting the ball into play. By and large, the “blue and white” were able to cope with the 2005 European champion Italian Matej Cernic - the guests effectively blocked him five times, and more than once the ball remained in play after the legionnaire’s shots.
“Fakel” had never defeated “Dynamo” in the previous 12 Super League matches and finally ended this sad series for themselves - 3:2 (25:22, 25:27, 22:25, 25:19, 15:10 ). True, in the second home match, the “gas producers” gradually lost ground - 0:3 (23:25, 19:25, 15:25), and are now forced to focus on the upcoming battle for bronze, which could be the club’s best achievement in the national championships. In general, the current championship is characterized by the fact that many teams are breaking unpleasant traditions. Surgut's ZSK-Gazprom, for the first time since 2002, after only one win in eight matches, finally defeated Belgorod's Lokomotiv-Belogorye, Ufa's Neftyanik Bashkortostan stopped an even longer series of failures (14 meetings) in relations with the capital's Dynamo "
The team from Surgut was the first to drop out of the race for the last, fifth ticket to European competition in the consolation tournament for 5th-8th places. However, the new Challenge Cup with its obscure status is hardly the very tournament that you need to strive for at all costs. Having lost twice to Ekaterinburg's Lokomotiv-Izumrud at home, ZSK-Gazprom lost to the Urals in the third meeting on a foreign site - 0:3.