Climax of the season
Gazprom-Yugra is approaching the climax of the season, We are waiting for a series of two matches to reach the quarterfinals of the playoffs with St. Petersburg Zenit. The first game will take place 21 March at the Premier Arena, return meeting will take place 24 March in St. Petersburg. In case of equality of victories and points after two games, a “golden” set will be played, which will determine, who will go next.
Tournament layout (we are 12th, Zenit is fifth in the regular season) and the result of the final championship match, in which we lost dry in St. Petersburg, seems to clearly indicate the favorite of our couple. But the playoffs are inherently a completely different volleyball, other motivation, other emotions, different intensity, different price for each action. Here everything starts from scratch and all previous achievements or failures of opponents are actually reset to zero.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to nullify the obvious strengths of Zenit. In a situation, when everyone had already forgotten the names of Poletaev and Klyuka, the club found a solution with the main attacking weapon, renting Belarusian Vladislav Babkevich from Novy Urengoy "Fakel". This physically gifted player can cover as a diagonal position, and a powerful attacking finisher, that is, to be both “Poletaev” and “Klyuka”, pity, that not at the same time.
Romanian legionnaire Alexandru Rată and Pavel Zheleznyakov can cover Babkevich diagonally, in the follow-up game his alter ego is Fedor Voronkov. The role of an experienced receiver for two veterans, who went through fire and water - Andrei Titich and also Evgeniy Sivozhelez, who recently transferred from Fakel. Young Timofey Tikhonov is used, primarily, to strengthen the serve and in some tactical schemes.
Zenit has an undisputed leader in the center of the net, captain, Ivan Yakovlev, who scored his 500th block point for his current club in the last match with Gazprom-Yugra. Andrey Ananyev may also be paired with him., and Maxim Kosmin, and Alexey Safonov - they are all very qualified and experienced fighters. Great selection of binders: two players of the Russian national team level, Surgut resident Igor Kobzar and Dmitry Kovalev, capable of changing the pattern of the game depending on the situation. Zenit has no less luxury in the libero position: from France, having healed, Tokyo Olympic champion Zhenya Grebennikov returned, Semyon Krivitchenko is fine too.
The resources of Gazprom-Yugra can only be compared in that, that we also had two starting players out of action - Petar Krsmanovich and Ivan Korotaev. Ivan, perhaps, will return to duty, but in what condition? Another similarity: We also have three diagonal ones in our assets, Rajab Shahbanmirzaev, Vyacheslav Rudnev and Nikita Alekseev. If at Zenit Babkevich “floats” between the diagonal and the final game, then we have in the final game, rather, Alekseev may appear, and not from a good life.
Even with Korotaev in the ranks, we don’t have a stable pair of finishers. The return to Surgut of Alexey Rodichev is difficult to overestimate and his place in the lineup is unshakable, but with a partner there are problems. Dmitry Krasikov experienced, but he lacks physics in attack, and reception has never been his strong point. Ivan Skvortsov, vice versa, physically gifted, but still too young to play consistently at this level. Therefore, an old friend Alexander Slobodyanyuk appeared in the team, therefore, Nikita Alekseev insures certain moments of the position.
In the center of the net after the loss of Petar Krsmanovic, two Dmitrys play almost without alternative, Shevlyakov and Kurbatov. To their credit, they do it at a good level, but rotation wouldn’t hurt here either. We have two students from the St. Petersburg volleyball school, Vasily Tarasenko and Kirill Ionov, there are youth from YUKIOR, which will soon play decisive MVL matches at home, but this is not the same level, with which they win the Super League playoffs here and now.
Connecting two words - experience and youth, Вадим Ожиганов и Максим Кириллов. Хорошо бы вывести из них среднее арифметическое, нивелировав недостатки и подчеркнув достоинства, what, however, тренерский штаб и пытается делать, часто меняя Вадима и Максима по ходу игры. От связующих в волейболе зависит если не все, that's a lot, наши ребята стараются, сражаются, будем верить в них. Основную нагрузку либеро несет на себе в последних матчах Никита Нагаец и делает это с переменным успехом. Потенциал у него есть, ждем и здесь стабильности и самоотверженности.
In order not to spread thought along the tree: если каждый сургутянин покажет свой лучший волейбол, если мы сыграем, как команда, то у нас есть шанс против заведомо более сильного соперника. Этот шанс, certainly, у нас будет. А мы все, certainly, будем болеть за свою команду на «Премьер-Арене» 21 Martha!
