The first matches in the coming year volleyball team "Academy-Kazan" held on January 5 and 6 at its home site in the IC "Burevestnik" against "Iskra" from the Moscow region. In these meetings, the team was led by a new head coach, Maksim Maksimov.    
Maksimov changed the coach "Academy-Kazan" (the farm club of Zenit Kazan) who went "on the rise" Konstantin Sidenko. Sidenko stood at the helm of the representative of the super League, Ufa "Ural", for which the season is not too successful: the team occupies the 12th place in the standings. A well-established specialist in Ufa, while working with "academicians", was invited to the role of "crisis Manager".  
36-year-old Maksim Maksimov previously worked as a senior coach of the youth team "Zenit-UOR", reports http://sport.business-gazeta.ru he was also a member of the coaching staff of the Russian youth team.
During his playing career, the native of Kazan, Maksimov spoke at the position of Libero for the "oil industry worker of Bashkortostan" (1994 - 2005), "the Spark" (2005/06), "Lokomotiv-Izumrud" (2006 - 2008), "Novo" (2008 - 2010), the Krasnodar "Dynamo" (2010/11) and "Dinamo-Yantar" (2012/13).
As shown by the matches with "Spark", in which the Moscow team twice prevailed over the hosts on tie-breaks, the new coach has a lot of work ahead. Although the defeat with the score 2: 3 indicate that Maximov managed to cheer up the team, in the last matches of 2018 twice lost 0: 3.
The Academy team, we recall, finished the year on the eighth line, losing the last seven meetings. Guests before the tour ahead of the penultimate team of the Major League " A " only on the difference of goals scored and conceded. Nevertheless, "spark" in the first set took the initiative, went into the lead and won the game 25:19.
Kazan caught on, rebuilt the game and equalized the score by sets - 25:20. In the third of the party guests, that is, "gave battle", but the fighting spirit of the hosts was enough to win the set.
In the fourth game, "Academy-Kazan "was close to finishing the match in their favor, but with the score 24:21 in the game" academics " something broke. Guests at the decisive moment played reliably, equalized, and then pulled out a victory in the party (27:25). On the tie-break inspired by the success of the "spark" continued to play reliably in the defense, and not allowing the Kazan team to recover, completed the set and the match in their favor - 15:9.
The second game was no less dramatic. In the first game, the guests went forward again and won quite confidently-25: 22. "Academicians", once again in the role of catching up, restored balance (25:22). In the third set, the guests demonstrated that local failures are not able to deprive them of confidence in their abilities - 25: 17, in favor of "Spark". But the hosts showed character in the fourth set they seemed to have changed - with such confidence they had games cut, leaving no chance for the guests (25:15). It seemed that, having caught courage, they in the fifth set will easily bring a match to a victory. However, the "Spark" had other plans for all successful actions of Kazan, the guests responded with their own, not allowing the owners of the site to break away in the score. And at the decisive moment we managed to put a "fat point", winning with a score of 17:15.
Maksim Maksimov, head coach of the team "Academy-Kazan»:
- Tactical analysis of the opponent passed in the right direction. We managed their attack, their serve. Withstood his reception. But on the implementation of important goals we always had something in the way, there were reasons. And we did not take a chance where it was necessary to do. We got two losses with the same score. The teams are approximately equal, but we have an older team, we had to win due to experience. Not yet. We lacked a scoring player in the squad.
"Academy" still ranks 8th in the major League A, winning 8 out of 20 matches.