Translated material
Day of correspondence struggle
For the Russian team, the easy life at the World Cup is over
The Russian men's team continues its victorious march in the World Cup. The next defeated opponent was the outsider of the competition Egypt - 3:0 (25:19, 25:18, 25:19). Since our team has four difficult matches ahead, head coach Vladimir Alekno yesterday made do with a minimum number of volleyball players, giving rest to the captain of the national team, setter Vadim Khamuttskikh, who celebrated his 38th birthday, finishing players Sergei Tetyukhin and Yuri Berezhko, diagonal Semyon Poltavsky, and blocker Alexei Kuleshov.The players of the “conditional” second team and libero Alexei Verbov coped with their task, although there were some problems until the middle of the first set, but after a minute break from Alekno, our team scored several points in a row and everything fell into place. As a result, Alexey Ostapenko pleased with four aces, he, together with Alexander Volkov, with the direct participation of dispatcher Sergei Grankin, showed almost one hundred percent execution of the attack at the first pace - a total of 12 points out of 13 attacks. Another thing is that due to imperfect finishing of the ball from the reception, it was not always possible to organize this first tempo.
The most famous Egyptian player is setter Abdallah Ahmed, who plays in the Italian Serie A-1 for Gabeca (Montichiari) and last season played for Sisley (Treviso). The 24-year-old Egyptian became the champion of Italy and the winner of the national Cup, then adding to his track record the title of champion of Africa. Abdallah Ahmed demonstrated on Monday that he can serve well (three aces) and passed well to his partners, but the Egyptians have low attacking potential.
Perhaps, this inconspicuous North African team at the World Cup distinguished itself in only one component, although it has a very relative relation directly to volleyball. As you know, at competitions under the auspices of the FIVB, it is allowed to indicate not only the last name on the players' uniforms - you can also have a nickname or, for example, a first name. All teams, even with this relaxation, are trying to maintain at least some logical order. Brazilians traditionally have their names written or their diminutives (like Odintsovo’s Iskra’s follow-up player Gilberto Godoy Filho - Zhiba), although there are also nicknames that are completely untied from a person’s passport data.
Russia, Bulgaria, Spain and a number of other teams, out of habit, maintain absolute officialdom: only last names are on the uniform. But the Egyptians did their best to confuse the fans, statisticians, and organizers. Two players, including Abdallah, play under their own name, four more - under their last names, the rest of the team - under “nicknames” of unknown origin.
The seventh round of the World Cup can be described as a “day of correspondence competition.” Teams vying for victory and winning one of the three Olympic berths (Russia, Brazil, USA, Bulgaria) met with opponents of a noticeably lower class and tried to kill two birds with one stone - if possible, not particularly burden their leaders and at the same time significantly increase the coefficient ratio of goals won and lost. At the World Cup, this is the primary criterion for the distribution of places in the event of the same number of points between two or more teams. In this regard, Vladimir Alekno, perhaps, locally outplayed the Brazilian coach Bernardinho. Both grandees of world volleyball met with African teams (the South Americans - with Tunisia) and achieved the same advantage in goals - plus 19. But the Russians were defeated by seven players, and the Brazilians needed 11 performers - only Zhiba did not appear on the court.
However, all these conclusions are purely conditional. The fate of the World Cup and tickets to Beijing 2008 will be decided in the last three rounds in Tokyo. Today, the leaders in the meetings Russia - Puerto Rico (Fukuoka), Bulgaria - Tunisia, Brazil - Korea and the USA - Australia (Okayama) are unlikely to experience difficulties, but in Tokyo, where all 12 teams will gather, it will begin for our team The real challenge is matches with Bulgaria, Brazil and the USA one after another.
Results. World Cup. 7th round . Russia - Egypt - 3:0, Brazil - Tunisia - 3:0, USA - Korea - 3:0, Puerto Rico - Japan - 3:0, Bulgaria - Australia - 3: 0. Position of the leaders: Russia - 7 victories, Brazil - 6, Bulgaria, USA - 5, Argentina, Puerto Rico - 4.