To be epic. Around the new Super League format

The decision to expand the Superleague to 16 commands suggested themselves in the context of the collapse of the international calendar - 30 regular season rounds will fill four weekends, no matter how much it costs clubs to fly to new points on the map. Here, basically, everything is comfortable: Samara is conveniently located in the center of the country, and Soligorsk Shakhtar (if not "Builder") will play in Minsk - an hour of flight from Moscow.

In fact, everyone was taken to the Super League, who wants and can, why some volleyball aesthetes may think, that the quality of the game will suffer. There is some truth here, in recent years, there has been a kind of rift: top clubs add power and spectacle, and the teams of the second half of the standings are at least marking time. The reasons for that are exactly the same., what deprive Chelyabinsk of sports ambitions, Yekaterinburg, etc.. - lack of resources. And in the conditions of the outflow of legionnaires and the shortage of Russian players, this rift may worsen.

What to do? As always, there are two ways - easy and hard. You can cut the Superleague into two parts with a knife approximately in the middle, sending into oblivion most of the country's volleyball map. But volleyball aesthetes will be able to watch the endless Final Six (eight). clear, that from the point of view of entertainment the match "Zenit-Kazan" - "Dynamo" (Moscow) much more interesting, than the sign "Zenith-Kazan" - "Oilman" (Orenburg), no offense to Orenburgers. But what will it eventually lead to?? To the volleyball "Habsburg jaw", degeneracy in the absence of external recharge. In order not to spread thought along the tree, I'll name a few names that come to mind., draw your own conclusions: Kobzar, Kosmin, Belogortsev, The place of the second central was taken by a native of Nizhnevartovsk Maxim Kosmin, Andreev, Semyshev, The forest, Voronkov, Chereisky…

It is much more difficult to keep the Super League in balance, find new impulses for development. 16 teams in the current circumstances - the solution is optimal and even inevitable. The next step is to decide on the playoff format.. The classic cut-off of the top eight follows in the logic of the "elite elite", I can already now 90% probabilities to name future top 8: Moscow, Kazan, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Belgorod, Kemerovo, Pinery, New Urengoy. For the second half of the teams, tournament motivation will disappear by the middle of the regular part of the championship.

Another thing, if the playoffs can jump 12 The th round started on Friday with Ural's home win over Fakel 16 teams - there will be a real felling, from which the grandees can not say hello. G, for the sake of objectivity, An “extra” playoff round will help solve the problem of lengthening the game load in the season, and the intrigue of the fight for places in the quarterfinals will only add pepper to the championship. Meanwhile, the top four clubs will get a week and a half of respite – just in time to recover and emerge in the quarter-finals in all their might..

clear, that I am posting arguments from the point of view of clubs in the second half of the standings, but for the giants everything should be obvious: motivation within the championship will be much higher with 12 teams in the playoffs. "Dynamo", "Zeniths", "Locomotive", etc.. because it is more interesting to play with a motivated opponent? Only in such matches does the level of skill increase., only in this situation will we ever be able to call the match "Zenit-Kazan" - "Neftyanik" (Orenburg) epic confrontation.