Zenit-Kazan and Dynamo look like favorites again

In the Russian Volleyball Championship that starts today, it is not difficult to discern a quartet of obvious favorites. Two Zenits – Kazan, which won the title in the previous championship, and the unlucky St. Petersburg, as well as Dynamo Moscow and Lokomotiv Novosibirsk, in terms of personnel, have not become weaker compared to last season. It is a little more difficult to single out the main contender for gold among them, although, say, the results of the season-opening Centenary Cup hint that, most likely, Kazan and Muscovites will compete for it again.

The Russian Volleyball Championship quite often played with the regulations, making interesting adjustments to them, especially with the regulations of the decisive part of the tournament. But this year it remained exactly the same as it was in the previous championship. First – the regular championship, in which 16 clubs will take part, including the Belarusian Shakhtar, whose participation gives the competition a slight international flavor. Then – play-offs. For the four best clubs at the end of the regular season, it starts immediately with the quarterfinal series. Eight more will have to fight for the right to be in the top eight in the qualifying round.

And it’s not difficult to guess this lucky quartet in advance. It looks like it will be exactly the same as the previous season. In Russian volleyball there are several interesting clubs with famous characters on the floor or on the coaching bench, with a bright track record. Like the same “Belogorye”, which in the summer surprised with an invitation to the post of coach of the 38-year-old Alexander Volkov, who had just completed his career, an outstanding blocker from the list of heroes for the Russian national team at the London 2012 Olympics. But still, if we take into account all the significant parameters – brightness, experience and depth of the application, fresh background, four clubs – Zenit-Kazan, St. Petersburg Zenit, Dynamo and Novosibirsk Lokomotiv – stand out too much.

It’s a little more difficult to build a hierarchy in this four. Although, of course, there is a great temptation to write down St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk residents in advance as lagging behind, among those for whom bronze would be a good prize. Lokomotiv, alone among the Russian giants, underwent serious changes in its lineup in the summer: half of the core left. And they will probably take time to adapt. Although the Novosibirsk acquisitions look very good. We are talking, for example, about a pair of foreign players with similar surnames – the Bulgarian finisher Martin Atanasov and the Serbian diagonal Aleksandar Atanasevich, who is generally a real celebrity: he played for top clubs, twice won gold medals at the European Championships with his team.

What speaks against Zenit St. Petersburg, first of all, is its strange background. For several years now, its luxurious resources have simply been shouting that the club is about to take some valuable prize, but it is not merging even with the secondary ones. With everything else, except for the background, the Zenit team is in order, and the quality of the selection of players from the St. Petersburg team has not been greatly weakened even by the summer flight from Russia of their American star Matthew Anderson: it is still full of sonorous names – Yegor Klyuka, Viktor Poletaev, Zhenya Grebennikov, Igor Kobzar .

In any case, betting on Zenit Kazan, which won gold in the last championship, and Dynamo, which won it in 2021 and 2022, looks more reliable, or something. They have all the leaders, all the key volleyball players in place, the lineups differ exclusively in depth, and you won’t find problematic positions during the day. Coaches Alexey Verbov and Konstantin Bryansky have proven that they are excellent at managing the teams they have been given. And which of these two monsters without weak points should be placed higher in the scenario is, apparently, a matter of taste and point of view.

Some may think that the final series they played in the spring matters. In it, Zenit was amazingly easy, in three matches they demolished what seemed like an insanely dangerous opponent. Someone will pay attention to the clash that took place immediately before the opening of the championship. The “warm-up” for it was the Centenary Cup, dedicated to the centennial anniversary of domestic volleyball. Last weekend the Final Four of this tournament took place in Kaliningrad. In his decisive match, they met, defeating the St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk residents on the way to him, just “Zenit-Kazan” and “Dynamo” – although not 100% combative, but still not backup options. Zenit won two games, and then lost three in a row, allowing Dynamo to win what was perhaps an extremely important victory from a psychological point of view.

Alexey Dospehov