INTRODUCING THE OPPONENT: NEW "BELOGORE"

Introducing Gazprom-Ugra's first rival in the Russian championship - Belgorod Belogorye. The name is very familiar to volleyball fans., only under it this season is hiding, in fact, completely unknown team.

Judge for yourself: after the last season three diagonal left Belgorod at once - Georg Groser, Konstantin Bakun and Maxim Zhigalov, binder Sergey Grankin, middle blockers Nikolay Nikolov and Dmitry Musersky, finishers Yan Ereshchenko and Roman Danilov, libero Nikita Eremin. The main thing is that the legendary Sergei Tetyukhin ended his career.

Who's left?? Setter Roman Poroshin, blockers Ruslan Khanipov and Alexey Safonov, libero Alexey Obmochaev, Ilya Spodobets urgently returned from his loan in Nizhnevartovsk. clear, that the new face of Belogorye will be determined by new faces.

First of all, this is the new head coach, famous Serbian specialist Slobodan Kovac, head coach of the Slovenian national team. Last season, he led Halkbank from Ankara to the title of Turkish champion and something tells him, that he is unlikely to be able to immediately repeat the result in Russia.

Nevertheless, the current “Belogorye” has something to brag about. First of all, this is a pair of foreign players who finish the game, two captains of the national teams of Canada and Serbia, two "P" – John Perrin and Nemanja Petrich. Denis Zemchenok and the famous Belgorod resident Sergei Baranov were invited to play the role of diagonal players in the team., the central line will undoubtedly be strengthened by Alexander Gutsalyuk, and the libero position is Valentin Golubev.

Predict, Which lineup will Belgorod have for the first match of the championship is not easy - taking into account the fact, that legionnaires appeared in Belgorod just the other day. Nevertheless, These are experienced players and will probably be thrown into battle right away. Therefore, we vanish our opponent’s starting line-up: Poroshin – Zemchenok, Perrin – Petrich, Gutsalyuk - Khanypov, Golubev – Obmochaev.

What are the chances of Gazprom-Yugra in the first match? According to the rating, Belogorye is higher and plays at home, but let us remind you, What is this, in fact, new, unknown team, which, perhaps, she doesn't know yet, what to expect from yourself. I think, Belgorod residents will definitely become a serious force, but it takes time for Kovac’s coaching talents to manifest and the same foreign players to adapt. Therefore, we can hardly predict the result of the upcoming meeting, for the people of Surgut are also in the stage of self-knowledge, and the same Petar Krsmanovic also barely had time to appear in the team.

Surgut fans can only remember the start of the Russian Championship 2012/2013 gg, when in the first round Gazprom-Yugra beat the newly crowned triumphants of London with a score of 3:0. We will count on a repeat of the plot from six years ago.

1 tour of the Russian Championship 2019 on volleyball. men, Super League

14 October, 18:00 (MSK), DS “Space”, Belgorod

Match results; Online account; Broadcast LIVE: tvstart.ru

Belogorie – Gazprom-Yugra 3:0 (25:20; 25:19; 28:26), match statistics.