Debut in native walls
On Sunday, Gazprom-Yugra will play its first home match in the PARI Super League of the Russian Championship, opponent – “Dynamo-LO” from Sosnovy Bor. Our guests are called “atomic” after the main sponsor, Rosatom, but there is something explosive in this team even without reference to the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, located in Sosnovy Bor.
Three years ago, Dynamo were fighting for survival in the Super League, but then the team found resources to reconfigure and strengthen the roster in all positions. The evergreen Denis Biryukov was joined in the final game by Serbian national team player Marko Ivovic, previously noted in Belogorye and Lokomotiv. The career of the diagonal Sergei Pirainen was revived here, who ousted Maxim Zhigalov from the starting six. And Pirainen was pushed a little a year ago by a young student of the Novosibirsk school, Roman Murashko.
Now Murashko has gone to Yenisei, and in the opposite direction followed the Bulgarian Todor Skrimov, well known to Dynamo-LO head coach Alexander Klimkin from working together in Krasnoyarsk. The line of finishers Biryukov-Ivovich-Skrimov looks like one of the smoothest in the Super League, but there is also Denis Shenkel, a student of Novokuybyshevsk, capable of replacing any of the trinity.
Pirainen's current competition is Nazar Litvinenko, played his entire previous career in Ugra-Samotlor. Until this year, the main setter at Dynamo-LO was Nikola Jovovich, to whom from time to time questions arose regarding the conduct of the game. Now the Belarusian Konstantin Tyushkevich, bought from the sensational ASK from last season, is giving up, and does it very skillfully. You can say, that Dynamo-LO and Tyushkevich matched each other in style.
Tyushkevich was supposed to be paired with his fellow countryman Dmitry Vash, but trauma, received in the first match for the new team, led to the termination of the contract by mutual agreement. Now in this position - young and, as they say, promising Nikita Borchikov from the ubiquitous system of Novosibirsk Lokomotiv.
The center line is also in perfect order: reliable Dmitry Kolenkovsky, winner of the lethal serve Fannur Kayumov, our good friend Artem Dovgan, transferred together with Tyushkevich from ASK, as well as another young talent Mikhail Fedorov. Three liberos: Vladimir Shishkin, Nikita Vishnevetsky, Artem Barabash, but they will play in Surgut, probably, first two.
"Facelift", including the arrival of a new head coach, Alexandra Klimkina, allowed Dynamo-LO to be very close to the four giants of Russian volleyball for two years in a row: fifth place in 2022, sixth – in 2023. I think, that the plans of the Sosnovy Bor residents are at least not to lower the bar and so far everything is working out: Home victories over Enisey and Neftyanik under its belt.
Dynamo-LO will arrive in Surgut after a cup defeat in 1/8 finals in Krasnoyarsk. This loss should not be overestimated, there is a feeling, that Sosnovoborsk decided to concentrate on the championship, where the same “Yenisei” was beaten by them. So there will be more than enough concentration in Surgut. Finally, we will not tire of repeating, that the head coach of the opposing team is a legendary man for Surgut, binding, Yaroslav Vasilenko, who brought ZSK-Gazprom to the Super League and played for us for a long time. Always happy to see him at the Premier Arena, but victories, of course, We wish only Gazprom-Yugra.
It won't be easy to do this, but now in the Super League there are no easy opportunities at all. You need to fight with every opponent and there will be a chance of victory - this was proven by the last match of the Surgut team in Novy Urengoy. Another thing, How can you take advantage of these chances?. We believe in our guys and invite all volleyball fans to the debut of Gazprom-Yugra in the championship in their native walls. As always, Fan support is a powerful weapon!
