22/11/2017 09:42
Dinamo KAZAN return to Champions League stage with high expectations
2018 CEV Volleyball Champions League - Women
Kazan, Russia, November 22, 2017. After a short break, Dinamo KAZAN are returning to contest the CEV Volleyball Champions League this season – and they will be doing so after last year they claimed the top honours from the CEV Volleyball Cup. They obviously set the bar high hoping to repeat their success from the 2013-2014 season, when they won gold – the first and only women’s Russian team to have achieved this feat so far.
Dinamo KAZAN made their first appearance in Europe’s elite club competition back in 2011 with a young team and a major superstar in Ekaterina Gamova. They did so after taking their first title in the Russian national league and somehow stormed the European arena like a bright meteor. They reached the last stage of the competition and won the bronze medal at the Final Four tournament held in Baku. After that, Dinamo participated in the CEV Volleyball Champions League for five straight years.
Their most successful campaign came in the 2013/2014 season when Ekaterina Gamova, Maria Borodakova, Jordan Larson, Ekaterina Ulanova and Antonella Del Core, among others, helped Dinamo KAZAN win the CEV Volleyball Champions League in Baku and a few weeks later also the Women’s Club World Championship in Zurich.
As the roster of the team underwent many changes, Dinamo finished the 2015/2016 season without taking any major medals. However, they came back strong in 2016/2017, winning the CEV Cup and taking silver from the Russian national league – thus securing their participation in the 2018 edition of the CEV Volleyball Champions League.
Ekaterina Gamova and ‘Male Volleyball Player of the Year’ Maxim Mikhailov were responsible for drawing the 16 teams participating in the CL group stage across four pools – and Dinamo KAZAN ended up in a group featuring Poland’s Chemik POLICE and Serbia’s Vizura RUMA. Chemik and Vizura are teams that Dinamo already played with in previous editions of the competition. Their third opponent will be Bulgaria’s Maritza PLOVDIV, which surprisingly eliminated Russia’s Yenisei KRASNOYARSK in the third round after a dramatic come-from-behind victory and golden set.
Alexander Perepelkin, the energetic assistant coach of Dinamo KAZAN, expects his players to remain as focussed as possible on each match: “If we work and play the way we can, the level of the rivals should not be a matter of concern for us. If you think that someone is very strong or weak, this spoils your attitude for the game. Only when entering the playing area with a good mind-set, you can play as a team, which can win any match.”
As far as the roster of Dinamo KAZAN is concerned, the backbone of the gold-medal winning team from the 2017 CEV Volleyball Cup is still there. These players are Evgeniya Startseva, Elitsa Vasileva, Ekaterina Ulanova, and Elena Ezhova. Back in the summer of 2016, middle blockers Irina Koroleva (Zariazhko) and Marina Maryukhnich, plus setter Irina Filishtinskaya joined the ranks of the team. On top of this, after spending some time with other clubs, Daria Malygina and Irina Voronkova have returned to Kazan. Middle blocker Anastasia Samoilenko and opposite Natalya Mammadova, who received the award for the ‘Best Volleyball Player in Europe’ back in 2007, have moved to Kazan as well earlier this summer.
Leonid Baryshev, the President of the club and Asgat Safarov, the Head of the Tatarstan Society Dinamo, which actively supports the Volleyball team, set the highest goals while attending the event launching the 2017-2018 season. They both expressed their wish that Dinamo will win all of the competitions they are contesting this year. According to setter Irina Filishtinskaya, this is quite possible: “We had a rather favourable drawing in the Champions League. At least, we must make it through the group stage; that is our minimum goal. Personally, I always wanted to participate in the Champions League, and I have been working for this throughout my whole career. So right now, I very much look forward to the Champions League games.”
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