Fakel lost to Zenit Kazan and dropped from first place to third

There was a change of leader in the regular Russian volleyball championship. Fakel, which was in first place, lost to Zenit Kazan – 0:3, which was taken advantage of by Lokomotiv, which was in second place, and beat Belogorye – 3:1. In addition, the club from Novy Urengoy was ahead of Dynamo Moscow, which defeated its teammates from the Leningrad region – 3:1.

In the seventh round of the Russian Championship, three matches took place between teams representing the leading group. Although after the starting period of the regular season it had a rather unusual appearance, especially considering that it was headed by Fakel, who was very modest in name and capabilities. Yes, the Novy Urengoy team includes such famous masters as Olympic champion Sergei Grankin and Evgeniy Sivozhelez, but the 38-year-old setter has not yet entered the court at all due to health problems, and the 37-year-old finisher has recently returned to duty.

However, the unexpected leadership of “Fakel”, which had a series of six victories, could be explained by the nuances of the calendar (after all, it had not yet had to compete with contenders for medals), and accordingly needed confirmation. The away match against the current national champion was the first serious test of his strength. Moreover, after the Kazan Zenit, the club from the gas capital of Russia will have to meet with the Moscow Dynamo, Lokomotiv, St. Petersburg Zenit and Belogorye, after which, apparently, it will be clear what it is approximately capable of .

In Kazan, “Fakel” burned with a blue flame.

The much higher class of Zenit immediately caught my eye and was reflected on the scoreboard. The numbers 25:16 after the first game eloquently testified to the unconditional superiority of the Kazan team, who at the same time quite calmly gave rest to their star diagonal Maxim Mikhailov. His replacement, Kirill Klets, did not experience any difficulties in attack. The guests simply did not have enough physical strength to withstand a 210 cm tall volleyball player at the edges of the net. While they themselves had great difficulty getting the ball to the floor and constantly knocking on the three-story Kazan block.

In the second set, the hosts slightly reduced the pressure on the opponent, nevertheless they confidently kept him at a comfortable distance, not letting him get closer than four points. In general, the match proceeded in some kind of semi-training mode. Zenit head coach Alexei Verbov did not even need to take time-outs and adjust the actions of his players. But he could afford to actively rotate the lineup and save the strength of the leading performers. Thus, nominally reserve receivers Mikhail Labinsky and Andrei Surmachevsky, who regularly replaced Dmitry Volkov and Sam Deru, received a lot of playing time.

The Kazan team also won the second game quite decisively – 25:19, and only in the third game did any semblance of a struggle arise, when in the opening they even let the guests go ahead. Then “Fakel” managed to reduce the difference to a minimum a couple of times, but nothing more. When necessary, the hosts stepped up their game, turned on their killer serve and took the lead. So the final set ended with a big advantage – 25:19. With 15 points, Zenit caught up with the Novy Urengoy team, who are still higher in the total number of victories.

With all due respect to the leader, the match in Novosibirsk, where Lokomotiv hosted Belogorye, was much more interesting.

Moreover, both teams have already upset Zenit Kazan. The Belgorod team took the first game – 25:23, who, oddly enough, got into the game faster. But the hosts held on for a long time, and then they went and over the next two sets they simply had an overwhelming advantage, ending them with scores of 25:20 and 25:15.

To change the course of the meeting, the beginning coach of Belogorye, Alexander Volkov, used an unconventional move, putting both foreign players on the bench – Moroccan Mohammed Al-Khachdadi and Chinese Zhang Jingyin. It almost worked, and the same Stanislav Masliev brilliantly coped with the role of the joker. The Belgorodians could have at least dragged their opponents into an unpredictable and nervous tie-break, but in one of the episodes the judges took away a practically won point from them, mistakenly recording the Novosibirsk team touching the net and blowing the whistle prematurely. If not for this incident, the guests would have led 23:19, but the result remained the same – 22:19. As a result, they faltered and gave away the end of the fourth game – 23:25.

On the other hand, Lokomotiv’s victory cannot be called undeserved. In particular, the Bulgarian finisher Martin Atanasov played an excellent match, scoring 22 points with an efficiency of 68% and showing another 61% positive reception. With 18 points, the railway workers took first place in the super league. The same is true for the capital’s Dynamo, which also defeated its teammates from the Leningrad region in four sets, despite the fact that they won only one less victory in the previous six rounds. Muscovites pushed Fakel to third position.

Alexander Ilyin