The last matches of the Russian Premier League ‘A’ championship were played last week by volleyball ‘Academy-Kazan’. The student team hosted Ekaterinburg's Lokomotiv-Izumrud on their home court.
Before the last stage of the championship the teams were separated by two lines - the guests were in the fourth place, the hosts were in the sixth place. At the same time, the aspirations to improve their positions in the standings were equally high.
The opening game immediately showed that the games would be tense. The first set and immediately a tie-break, in which the guests played more reliably (24:26). In the second game ‘academicians’ tried to seize the initiative, but the end failed (20:25). The third set was also won by the visitors with the same result (19:25).
The second game was again controlled by the visitors, but the home team managed to make some adjustments to the final score. While Lokomotiv-Izumrud won the first game quite confidently (17:25), Academy-Kazan rehabilitated itself in the second (25:23). This was the end of the Kazan team's success - they lost the next two sets (19:25; 15:25).
As a result, the Academicians finished the season in eighth place in the A league, losing to the two teams above them - CSKA (Moscow Region) and Kama (Perm) - only on goal difference. The number of matches won and lost is the same for all three teams.
Maxim Maximov, head coach of VC "Academy-Kazan", said that the preparation for the last matches of the season turned out to be a little crumpled.
“But we must pay tribute to Lokomotiv - they came to fight for every ball, for every game. It was difficult to oppose them with anything. Therefore, I think that they deservedly won,” admitted Maxim Maximov. — As for the season as a whole, I consider it quite successful; many players will benefit from it. At the beginning of the season, it was difficult to imagine that we would even get into the top eight, although there were such plans.
This year there were a lot of young players joining the team. At the same time, we often had players taken from us for matches in parallel leagues, for example, the Youth League. Therefore, preparations often took place with an inferior squad, and all this led to the fact that we dropped a little in the standings. If the players were constantly with us, a full-fledged training process was built, we would be able to fight for the top four.
Next season we are expecting another change in the squad, as many players are leaving for promotion. Enin, for example, goes to Zenit Kazan, the rest go to teams close to the Super League, or to first place teams in the major league “A”. So we will conduct selection again, look for talents and continue to work. After all, our main task is to develop players for Zenit; every year at least one person goes to them. I think not many clubs can boast of such statistics.”
Text and photo: Pavel Zheleznyak
