Kazan, Russia, February 10, 2014. Dinamo KAZAN faces the chance to qualify for the Final Four of the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Women which would be the second time in its history. The Russian team only needs to gain at least one point from its Tuesday evening encounter with visiting Volero ZÜRICH of Switzerland to book its ticket to Baku. The Azerbaijani capital was also the stage of the Final Round back in 2012 when the girls from Tatarstan took bronze.
Volero ZÜRICH already won in Kazan by 3:2 back in December, but by that time both teams had already qualified for the Playoff 12 stage and had the opportunity to engage in some experiments, so the head coach of Dinamo KAZAN Rishat Gilyazutdinov gave his leaders the chance to rest. Ekaterina Gamova, Jordan Quinn Larson-Burbach and Antonella Del Core were not in the team’s starting line-up. Only Evgeniya Startseva and Ekaterina Ulanova were retained from the usual first squad to support their young colleagues. This substitute line-up of Dinamo still managed to win two sets against their more experienced opponents.
With the strongest composition of its team, Dinamo won the other two matches with Volero played this season in Zurich – 3:0 during the League Round and 3:1 in the Playoff 6 first leg last week.
The start of the season did not promise anything good for Volero, but upon the return of head coach Dragutin Baltic the team changed and won 19 games in a row, reaching the Playoff 6 stage of the CEV DenizBank Champions League and winning the regular season in Switzerland’s domestic league. In preparation for its trip to Russia, on Sunday Volero yet again won the national cup of its country as well.
The match on Tuesday starts at 19:00 local time at the Saint Petersburg competition hall in Kazan.