On October 7, the handball club of the Volga Academy of sports "Phoenix-Academy" opened the season with a friendly match with the team of the Kazan national research technical University (KAI) in the sports and cultural complex "KAI-Olimp". "Academicians" lost with the score 16: 20. For the coach of our team Aleksey Popov, the game was the first show of strength on the eve of the start in the championship of the student handball League of RT.
11 October will be held the Intercollegiate League draw (under the title competition, held for the first time). And on October 20 in the hall of the center of rowing sports "Phoenix-Academy" will hold an official game. The opponent is not yet known, but it is already clear what tasks our team faces in the 2018/19 season. According to Aleksey Popov, who led the Academy team in September, his team is quite capable of taking second or third place (last season, "academicians" finished fourth).
Our team is obliged to make a step up, as the University seriously took up the development of this sport, inviting two specialists to work with handball teams. Aleksey Popov and Alfiya Dozmorova moved to Kazan, Izhevsk, where he worked with the student teams and coached children in a local school. So far we are talking only about the fact that the Volga Academy creates a women's (which previously was not at all) and men's teams that will train and play in student tournaments on a regular basis. In the future, the University may undertake the training of handball coaches.
In General, when Aleksey Popov instructed the guys to come up with a name for the team, they did not think for a long time.
- Kind of like the coach they found, and so there is reason to believe that the handball at the University reborn... like a Phoenix from the ashes - laughs coach.
The men's handball team of the Academy in previous years gathered at the University just before the start of any tournament, the guys trained on their own. And since the team consisted of students who had never been engaged in handball before, the "academicians" did not have to count on the championship. The only advantage of this practice: Aleksey Popov inherited a group of 12 guys who were already holding a handball ball. Eight freshmen were added to the old-timers. Among them there is even one pupil of the local handball school - a real handball player!
As has told after a match with "KAI-the Olympus" "the old" team Academy master's degree student of the first course of the faculty of sport Fanzil Ibragimov, newcomers without problems joined the team:
- No discomfort, no difficulties arise. New guys can always turn to us for help, for advice, and we, in turn, help them in this. It's good when there are people in the team who will always lend a shoulder.
He also spoke about his expectations from the season:
- We twice became the second in the student championship of RT. Last year we became the fourth. But the training was irregular. This year we will definitely make up for lost time, because we have been training systematically since September.
Alexey Popov is in no hurry to declare the championship claims and even the application for participation in the all-Russian League:
- How do I assess the level of players? Depends on the scale. As a professional handball coach I will say that they still have to learn. But for the student level, the team is not bad. It is necessary to consider that among them basketball players, wrestlers, volleyball players, rowers. But not handball players. But I saw what a team "KAI-Zilant", many children in the summer saw at the beach handball tournament. I think we should definitely be among the winners.
As for the women's team, coached by Alfiya Dozmorova, then it the season-2018/19 – fully is an "introduction to". The national team is only just formed of girls, except for two, also engaged in different sports. In the Russian League did not have time to appear, and in Tatarstan women's student tournament is not held. The girls will play in the city championship among the youth teams. The age difference, according to Alexey Petrov, will not help the students. Games with pupils of sports schools, on the head superior students in technology, will be for them a great school of handball.  
Photo: Maria Doktorova