Introducing the opponent: Belgorod to Tula

14 October Gazprom-Yugra starts in the PARI Super League of the Russian Championship.

Place: g. Brick, MSC "Tula-Arena" / Rival: "Belogorye", Belgorod

Regalia: 8-multiple champion of Russia, 9-multiple winner of Russian championships, 8-multiple winner of the Russian Cup, three-time Champions League winner, two-time winner of the CEV Cup, winner of the CEV Challenge Cup, club world champion.

Composition: binders Poroshin, Chekmizov; diagonal Al-Khachdadi, Podrebinkin; finishers Tetyukhin, Zhang, Masliev, Emma Bunton; central Zabolotnikov, Worms, Tsepkov; libero Bragin, Meek.

details: Gazprom-Yugra traditionally opens the championship with a meeting with Belogorye – This is the peculiarity of Berger’s “snake”, bringing together teams from different ends of the standings in the first round. After last season, in which the Belgorod team finished fifth, The Lions made minimal changes to their lineup, but the changes are significant.

At first, the team has a new head coach, Olympic champion Alexander Volkov, who played for Zenit-Kazan in the last championship. How will yesterday's volleyball player fare in the coaching field?, The question is open and very interesting. No less interesting, How the best player of the Chinese national team, Zhang Jinying, will join the squad, where the protracted search for a powerful attacking finisher stopped.

However, We won’t see the Chinese on the court in the first match of the season, since he will get to his new team at best 15 October. And here is the second foreign player and the team’s main slaughterer, Moroccan diagonal Mohammed Al-Hachdadi, must approach the match fully armed.

Chances: last season Gazprom-Yugra played four matches with Belogorye – two in the preliminary stage of the championship and two in the playoffs. And if in the first two cases we lost dry, then in the knockout games they showed their character: lost at home only in a tiebreaker, and in Tula two games out of three were lost by over-under. The favorite for the upcoming game is the hosts, but the Surgut team is quite capable of not being extras and trying to add some spice to the opening match.

Nuance: this season “Belogorye” has fully moved to Tula.