The championship is behind us, let's sum it up

Results of the season in the championship: 12 victories in 30 regular season matches, 10-is a place, defeat in the qualifying round of the playoffs. This is the best result in recent years 6 years old: we finished 11th in 2021 and 2025, and three years in a row, from 2022 by 2024, were 12th. And never during this time did they qualify higher in the playoffs.

Seems like relative success, but if you look at the context, then its importance increases. At first, more 12 The last time we won victories in the regular season was ten years ago., in the distant 2016 year, when they finished with 17 victories in fourth place. In fairness it is worth noting, as for 2022 played in the Superliga 14 teams and games, respectively, there were less. But we didn’t have many victories either.: from 11 in 2017 (plus Kuzbass, defeated in the playoffs) to 7 in 2022 and 2023 gg.

It is also important to keep in mind the resource context: with the departure of Gazprom pererabotka and the general decrease in funding in recent years, we had to, according to all laws of physics, fight for survival. We fought for it - invariably exceeding expectations by a step or two. And this season, can say, jumped a little over our heads.

However, we started the championship with effort. And if the debut dry defeat in Krasnoyarsk could still be understood and forgiven, but the subsequent home cracker in the match with the debutant, "Yaroslavich", put me in a sad mood. There was a struggle only in the first set, we simply gave the second and third to our opponent.

Then there was a sudden victory in Ufa. Sudden, because at the start no one expected, that the strong Dynamo-Ural will be seriously stormy during the season. After that, we actively resisted Novosibirsk Lokomotiv as guests., but they didn't take our set, and at home, predictably, they found no arguments against Belogorye and Zenit Kazan.

The match with Orenburg in the seventh round was supposed to be a definite watershed. If we lost it, the fight for survival would become a reality, win - prospects for the playoffs opened up. We won 3:1. Not to tell, which is easy - we gave away the first set 26:28, walked the edge in the third and fourth, but in the end they fixed themselves vector. And then, 21 November, there was another unexpected success, 3:0 in Novy Urengoy. There, what is called, the stars aligned - the opponent looked dismantled, Romano was just starting to settle in, and the rest did not support him.

After that, we forced Vladimir Alekno to involve the injured Vlad Babkevich in saving the game in Surgut (1:3) and won a very important victory in the tiebreaker in Kemerovo, where Sergey Panov, brought in from Tyumen, helped a lot. Victory in Moscow over MSTU, third in a row - and then two defeats from Dynamo-LO and Nova, the match with Dynamo Moscow was postponed to January. In the last game of the outgoing year, we closed the first round with a disappointing defeat at home to Gorky in five sets and went to celebrate the New Year in a thoughtful state.

IN 2026 year Gazprom-Yugra burst into high gear, starting with a home victory over Enisey. Then there was labor success in Yaroslavl with 19:17 a tiebreaker, another “cracker” to “Dynamo-Ural” and another loss in the fight to “Lokomotiv”. The culmination and best match of the season in Tula - 3:0 with "Belogorye". Yes, Al-Khachdadi did not play, Belgorod residents made a lot of mistakes, but the sheriff is not interested in the problems of the Indians. Everyone started talking not only about Slavi Kostadinov’s serve, but also about the taking off Kirill Nikiforov, about the team game of Ugra residents.

Behind Tula was Kazan, where we managed to take a set from the champions, but much more important was the victory in Orenburg - the hardest, strong-willed, after 0:2, in five sets, from 16:14 a tiebreaker. It was then that we made the necessary groundwork for strength in the fight for the playoffs. Afterwards, in Surgut, we ourselves found ourselves caught in the “return” – leading with "Torch" 2:0, missed the victory. We could have repeated this “trick” in the home match against Kuzbass after losing to Zenit in St. Petersburg., he says 2:0, allowed to equalize, but still snatched the fifth set. This is how we went through the season, winning with blood. by the way, in St. Petersburg we played for the first time according to the scheme 4-2, and the problems of Kirill Nikiforov, seemed frivolous at first, resulted in a protracted downtime. Around the same time, we lost Dmitry Shevlyakov and the team moved on, accompanied by injuries - yes, in a victorious match with MSTU, two finishers were eliminated in one game, Alexander Kostadinov and his replacement Pavel Kuklinsky.

The bloodless Gazprom-Yugra “flew” the championship on one wing, losing in the remaining matches to Dynamo-LO, "new", "Dynamo" and "Gorky". In the last match, half of the squad was from the youth team. It seemed, that the team was concentrating on the playoffs - that’s how it was. But Nikiforov did not have time to get into shape, Shevlyakov did not recover, there were other injuries. As a result, Golovin and Gusamov from YUKIOR joined the lineup and at times they looked not bad at all. clear, that it’s too early for them to decide, but relying on youth is a story with a continuation. We will still play in the Russian Cup 2026 of the year, for starters, in the play-offs with Yaroslavich. But now we can say, that Gazprom-Yugra can take credit for the past season. Especially considering the fact, that 10th place gave us a ticket to the II All-Russian Spartakiad in summer team sports, where will they perform this September 12 best regions of the country. In modern times, this is akin to participating in the Olympic Games..

You can say, that in Surgut they have once again found the “magic” formula for success, выдав потрясающий КПД и выдающееся соотношение цена-качество. Сработала ставка на братьев Костадиновых, которые превратились в Сургуте из выходящих на замену «ролевиков» в две полноценные боевые единицы. Помимо Костадиновых сезон раскрыл Кирилла Никифорова, продлил четвертую молодость Алексея Родичева, вернул в Суперлигу Ивана Демакова, подсветил талант Александра Моисеева, and, normally, наметил будущее через собственных воспитанников, Даниила Голованова, Fidana Gusamova, Петра Петренко. Сургут был и остается важнейшей точкой на волейбольной карте России. Хотелось бы сказать – благодаря, но в большей степени вопреки окружающим процессам.

However, сейчас нелегко примерно всем и поддержка Правительства ХМАО-Югры, ООО «Газпром трансгаз Сургут» поистине неоценимы. Отдельная благодарность авиакомпании «ЮТэйр», которая нашла возможность помочь землякам. Спасибо всем, кто рядом, кто верит в команду и болеет за Югру, Surgut, Gazprom! Огромное спасибо болельщикам, которые в этом сезоне начали возрождать былую славу «Премьер-Арены» как места, где у «Газпром-Югры» есть седьмой игрок на трибунах. Сезон еще продолжается и у команды еще будет возможность сказать это «спасибо» своей игрой. Волейбол не заканчивается никогда, в Сургуте уж точно!