“Zenith” has found a link – Sport – Kommersant

In the Russian volleyball Superleague, the first high-profile coaching resignation took place this season. Petersburg “Zenith”, one of the favorites of the championship, which gave out a fantastically successful start and abruptly passed after the New Year, parted ways with their mentor Andrei Tolochko and replaced him with Viktor Sidelnikov. For Sidelnikov, who was once one of the top domestic specialists, this appointment is a return to the volleyball elite after a long break.

Petersburg “Zenith” announcedthat broke up with head coach Andrey Tolochko. This is the first high-profile coaching resignation in the Russian Volleyball Superleague this season.

Zenit, created only in 2017, has established itself among the volleyball giants almost immediately. But, constantly being close to the titles, he still managed not to win a single one.

The club took the silver of the Russian championship twice and lost three times in the final of the Russian Cup. His previous mentor was Finn Tuomas Sammelvuo, who also led the national team. Russia he left in the spring of last year, shortly after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, like many foreign experts.

Meanwhile, it seemed for a very long time that in the person of Andrey Tolochko, Zenit finally found a coach who could bring him a valuable prize, interrupting a strange series of misfires on the outskirts of victory. The club had a phenomenal start in the Russian regular season, winning 18 matches in a row. However, after the New Year everything changed.

In the last six rounds, the still well-equipped Zenit suffered four defeats from competitors in the struggle for high places: Moscow Dynamo, Novosibirsk Lokomotiv, Kazan Zenit and last weekend from Belgorod Belogorye. Failures dropped the club from the top line of the championship table to third. At the same time, we recall that only two leaders receive direct tickets to the Final Six, in which medals will be played. The rest will have to break into it through the play-offs.

Andrey Tolochko Zenit management picked up an interesting replacement, entrusting the team to Viktor Sidelnikov.

In the decade before last, Sidelnikov, the once-famous setter of the USSR and Russia national teams, coached the Kazan Dynamo club extremely effectively. It was under Sidelnikov that Kazan moved from the second-ranking division to the top one and got the first trophies in their history – the Cup of Russia in 2004 and the gold of the national championship in 2007.

Later, however, Sidelnikov left the team, which in the next decade turned into the undisputed flagship of all European volleyball, and did not appear at this level again. He worked abroad, including leading the national team of Belarus, as well as in not the most notable Russian clubs – Yaroslavich and Ural.

Zenith seemed to consider him a suitable figure in case emergency personnel changes were needed, and back in September they hired him as a consulting coach. The fact that Sidelnikov already perfectly knows the club’s players and its capabilities served as a basis for the Zenit leadership to hope that “the new head coach will be able to fully integrate into the team’s headquarters in the shortest possible time and continue preparing for the play-offs of the Russian championship.”

Alexey Dospekhov