Translated material
Expanse for experiments
The World League has started
The World League started last weekend. 14 teams have already entered the competition, the matches of the first round of quartet “B” Italy - Japan are scheduled for early July, when all other participants have already completed the group stage. The Russians, playing in the four “C”, hosted Serbia at the Krylatskoye sports center in Moscow and won twice - 3:0 (29:27, 25:14, 25:21), 3:1 (25:21, 25:23, 21:25, 30:28).Our team had three debuts at once. For the first time, the team was led to an official international match by the new head coach Vladimir Alekno, who previously worked in the French Tour and the capital's Dynamo. Lokomotiv-Belogorye Belgorod's finisher Roman Danilov and Perm's Prikamye forward Evgeniy Matkovsky opened their account of their performances for the national squad. His club should leave the elite based on the results of the Super League championship, but it is not a fact that Matkovsky will have to play in the major league “A”. In Sunday's match, he was in the starting six and became the best scorer of the meeting - 21 points. One of the teams in the main division of the Russian championship will probably be interested in Evgeniy in the off-season.
Since the Olympic selection begins in 2007 and the first tickets to the Summer Games will be distributed at the November World Cup in Japan, and qualification for the Land of the Rising Sun can be achieved based on the results of the continental championships, the World League is considered by many to be a secondary tournament. The Russian team is not faced with the task of winning it; the most important thing is to get gold at home Euro 2007 in September. Our leading volleyball players are still recovering from club battles; a “light” squad played in Krylatskoye. However, even in this situation, there was no doubt about the two victories over the Serbs - only four players from those who participated in the 2006 World Cup arrived in our capital. Moreover, two of them sat on the bench last fall in Japan, and blocker Novica Bjelica was forced out of the starting lineup by Marko Podrascanin during the competition. So, in fact, from the Serbian fighting force in Moscow, only libero Marko Samardzic entered the court.
The Russians had their long-awaited return to the national team of setter Vadim Khamuttskikh. However, as the player himself correctly emphasizes, he did not return to the main team of the country, because he never left it. Let us recall that, having accepted the Russian team in the spring of 2005, its now former coach, Serbian Zoran Gajic, stubbornly did not involve Vadim in the national team. The experiment with young passers, as you know, ended in a nightmare for Russia - seventh place at the World Cup. Gayich, having lost his post, continued to live in Russia and finally waited for an invitation to Odintsovo’s Iskra.
In the matches with Serbia, the winner of the 2002 World League, finisher Pavel Abramov, was practically not involved. The main burden in this role fell on Dynamo Moscow players Alexander Korneev and Yuri Berezhko. Two more representatives of the “blue and white” Alexei Ostapenko and Alexander Volkov acted on the block, their teammate Sergei Grankin at times replaced Khamuttskikh, and Maxim Tereshin attacked diagonally on Saturday, giving up his place to Matkovsky the next day.
The final round of the World League will take place on July 11-15 in Katowice (Poland). If the Poles bought all the tickets for six matches of their team in the group stage, which have no fundamental sporting significance, then in the middle of summer the Spodek Sports Palace will probably be super sold out. The hosts have a guaranteed place in the final and if they become first in group “D”, then the second team of the quartet will receive a ticket to Katowice. According to the regulations, the group winners advance to the finals; only teams that take no lower than second place in the fours can qualify for the wild card.
Winners of all the major international competitions of the last five years, the Brazilians managed in Korea without seven volleyball players who took part in the World Cup finals. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the hosts were able to win a couple of games in the second match. The Americans in Portland shared points with the French without the newly crowned Russian champions from Dynamo-TTG Kazan, setter Lloy Ball and diagonal Clayton Stanley. Both have been entered into the World League, but for now they have been given time to recover.
The Cubans, after the flight of Yasser Portuondo and Romero Poey, whom the Russians knew from their performance in the Super League, lost the game at home to the World Cup outsider Egypt and gathered in Havana an audience completely uncharacteristic for the Island of Freedom - 2700-3100 spectators. Last season, the Cubans also opened the tournament with matches against Egypt, and 7,700 fans gathered for the first game. The world league in its current form is of greatest interest to openly volleyball-fan Poles - not a single empty seat and crowded aisles in the stands of the palace in Lodz, which seats 9,500 people.
Results. World League. Preliminary stage. 1st round. Group "A". Canada - Finland - 3:1, 1:3. Korea - Brazil - 0:3, 2:3. Group "B". USA - France - 2:3, 3:1. Group "C". Cuba - Egypt - 3:1, 3:0. Russia - Serbia - 3:0, 3:1. Group "D". Poland - China - 3:0, 3:2. Bulgaria - Argentina - 3:0, 3:0.