How volleyball players filmed coaches: replacement on the coaching bench has not helped Zenit yet

As subsequent events showed, the “initiative from below” did not bring anything good to the football “Zenith” (as well as to the whole country). Soon the Leningrad team was relegated from the Major League of the USSR Championship, and then from the First League, eked out a miserable existence in the first Russian championships, and only in 2007, when Gazprom became the club’s sponsor, did they repeat the success of the Sadyrin team of 1984.

Today Gazprom sponsors not only Zenit football, but also basketball, volleyball and handball. The reason to remember the removal of Sadyrin in the era of perestroika and glasnost were the events in the volleyball team, where after four victories in a row, head coach Viktor Sidelnikov was removed from his job. This happened after a meeting of the players and coaching staff with the chairman of the club’s supervisory board, Sergei Khomyakov. The Deputy Chairman of the Board of PJSC Gazprom oversees volleyball at Zenit, leaving the other three sports to Alexander Medvedev.

Rude and outdated?

The reason for the meeting was changes in the club’s management. As director, Anatoly Khaibulkin replaced Vladimir Samsonov, who worked in this position since the transformation of the modest Avtomobilist into the richest Zenit by the standards of the Russian Super League. After this, the volleyball players asked for an audience with the club boss. And they complained about the head coach’s working style.

Like, Sidelnikov is rude, he can yell, and he uses outdated methods in the training process. Hence the results that neither the management, nor the fans, nor the volleyball players themselves can satisfy. “Zenith” has settled firmly in the middle of the standings, noticeably lagging behind not only the giants from Kazan, Novosibirsk and Moscow, but even “Dynamo” from the Leningrad region.

The club bosses acted tactfully but decisively. Sidelnikov was removed from working with the team with the wording “due to deteriorating health” (although there were no complaints from the now ex-head coach himself), and Sergio Buzato, who had previously served as an acting member of the Zenit coaching staff, was appointed in his place trainer-analyst. This is a very important position in volleyball. The analyst actively works during matches, telling the head coach what needs to be changed in his team’s game and what the opponents are doing well.

Russified Italian

Buzato has been working in Russia for more than 20 years, even leading the women’s national team. “My family is in Italy, and I am in Russia, where I have many friends,” said Signor Sergio after his appointment to this post. — Probably, he himself is already 51 percent Russian. I am grateful to Russia for giving me a great chance in my career.”

It’s just that he last worked as the club’s head coach in 2012. Despite repeated declarations of love for our country, Signor Sergio mastered the Russian language, let’s say, not perfectly. Although the volleyball players and especially the female volleyball players somehow understood his instructions.

The first check for the new and. O. The head coach was given a match against Zenit Kazan, which is now leading in the national championship. The St. Petersburg team approached this game having slightly patched up the holes in the lineup, which, to a much greater extent than Sidelnikov’s work, influenced the current position in the standings. We managed to add a second foreign player, Romanian Alexandru Rată, who plays in the diagonal position, and Belarusian Vladislav Babkevich, who is not considered a foreign player and can play in several roles.

Coach or showman?

There was a full house in the stands at the Zenit derby. The atmosphere at Zenit matches, be it basketball, volleyball or handball, is always simply cool. The professionals hired by the club are great at getting the audience going, and in volleyball they also use a technique from the arsenal of boxers when long-legged girls from the support group come out with signs with the set number. Only Buzato for some reason decided that he also needed to work as a showman. He constantly addressed the stands, jumped onto the court to excite his players. Although they didn’t need it at all.

Did the head coach have time to control the course of the game and make adjustments to it? After two games, the St. Petersburg team was on fire, but everything changed in the third, when Babkevich was moved to the diagonal position. By this time, the guests had noticeably relaxed, and even the St. Petersburg libero, Frenchman Zhenya Grebennikov, was playing.

“It’s not even worth comparing Grebennikov with his colleagues in the role from other Super League clubs,” said the head coach of Zenit Kazan, himself a former libero of the Russian national team, Alexey Verbov after the game. – This is another planet. In the game against the St. Petersburg team, in certain episodes we acted specifically against Grebennikov.”

“Looking for our game”

It was not possible to find out from Busato why the team entrusted to him, in fact, started playing only from the third game and ultimately lost in five. How to assess his level of Russian language proficiency. Entering the mixed zone, and… O. The head coach of Zenit St. Petersburg shook hands with the MK in St. Petersburg journalist with great pleasure and considered his mission accomplished. Setter Igor Kobzar had to take the rap for the acting head coach.

— How did the changes on the coaching bench affect the team?

— Such changes should shake up any team. Although during the season we had enough other stresses. Now we are looking for our game, the optimal combinations of players on the court. A team like Zenit cannot be satisfied with the 8th place we currently occupy.

— Has anything changed in the training process?

— Each coach has his own volleyball philosophy. There are changes, but this is the team’s internal kitchen. Fans need to see the results on the court.

— How would you comment on the turning point that occurred in the third game of the match with Zenit Kazan?

— We changed the formation, placing Vladislav Babkevich in the diagonal position. In this role he feels more confident and comfortable, and it has become easier for me to pass. We didn’t give up in the first two games, we fought for every ball, and the Kazan team, having easily won the first two games, relaxed a little. This is what they were caught doing.

The show is guaranteed, but what about the results?

Zenit has serious challenges ahead. In February there will be an away match with Dynamo Moscow and home games with Novosibirsk Lokomotiv and Dynamo from the Leningrad region. Will he stay in office? O. head coach “great showman” Busato? There was even talk in the volleyball community that Tuomas Sammelvuo, whom Samsonov fired in February 2022, the day before the start of the SVO, could return to St. Petersburg. So the departure of the Finnish specialist (who, by the way, speaks excellent Russian) is not connected with political motives.

Sammelvuo recently left the post of head coach of the Polish club Zaksa, which is unsuccessful in the national championship. For the same reason as Zenit, having lost its leading players due to injuries. But will the Finnish coach himself want to go against the decisions of his government? In addition, Sammelvuo won a ticket to the 2024 Olympics with the modest Canadian team in the summer. In the Land of the Maple Leaf, where volleyball is second in popularity not only to hockey, but also to basketball, they are ready to carry it in their arms, but they are unlikely to bless it for work in Russia.

In general, a volleyball show in St. Petersburg is guaranteed in the near future. Whether there will be results is a big question.