Men's Olympic volleyball team. Head coach of the Russian men's volleyball team Vladimir Alekno

The blue-white-sky blues won the traditional St. Petersburg Vyacheslav Platonov Memorial and continue preparations for the official season. Among the newcomers to Alexander Klimkin’s team is 22-year-old St. Petersburg student Sergei Pirainen. Diagonal spent last season in the ranks of the struggling VC Ugra-Samotlor, which did not have enough money for plasters and air tickets. Now he is preparing to play in the Champions League. Pirainen told Sport Day by Day how difficult it is to be a young player in a very experienced squad.

- You made a sudden transition- from a hopeless outsider of the Super League to the silver medalist of the Russian Championship.
- Yes, last season I played in Nizhnevartovsk. Zenit came to our game. After the game I went to the hotel where the Zenit players lived. I was going to meet with friends and acquaintances. With Denis Chereysky, let's say. I arrived, and Andrei Tolochko (senior coach of Zenit - “Sport Day by Day”) came up to me and said that they wanted to see me at Zenit. I was very happy that I would spend the next season in my hometown, and immediately agreed. It's nice to be back in St. Petersburg. It's interesting to make your debut in the Champions League. This is a very prestigious tournament. It will provide invaluable experience. There are such teams! Everyone is interesting to meet. I really like Italian volleyball. It would be interesting to play against Italian clubs.

- Ugra had serious financial problems. Was it difficult for you last season?
- Yes, it was not easy. There was no money for trivial things. On plasters. We ended the season completely exhausted. Although Samotlor has a good club president. I hope he can regain lost ground.

- Zenit has a different situation. Only gold is higher than silver.
- I believe that Zenit is capable of achieving the highest goals in the new season. The team is well selected. I really like everything. Staff. Organization. The team is very experienced. Partners always suggest what needs to be improved. A very good coach. I'm lucky with my team! I don’t think about how to beat Kazan. These are questions for the coach. My thoughts now are about getting in shape. I can’t judge in percentage terms how ready I am, but I need to get in better shape. Before the Platonov Memorial, Zenit conducted several training cycles with balls. The memorial itself became an attraction tournament. The coaching staff regulates when to increase the load and when to reduce it.

- Isn’t it hard for you and Pavel Pankov among the older players of Zenit’s “base”?
- On the contrary, it’s interesting. They give us advice and help. The whole team can help, and everyone suggests their action. If something doesn’t work out for me, then, for example, Zhenya Sivozhelez comes up to me after finishing the workout and calmly explains what needs to be done. We repeat the exercises together. So I sometimes stay late after training. This is very good for me.

- What do you need to work on?
- Above everything! Above the block, let's say. In attack you need to play with the connections. Probably over line attacks. It's okay, everything will work out soon. The most important thing for me is to prove to myself that I can remove my shortcomings. And then we will see.

Soon Georg Groser will join Zenit, who should become the main diagonal of the St. Petersburg team.
- It will be interesting to play with such an athlete. I think you can learn everything from him. And the whole team can learn something new from him. Personally, I especially look out for lefties who play my position. I'm left-handed myself. We don’t have many left-handed diagonal players in the Russian Super League. Sometimes I watch games by Maxim Zhigalov and Denis Zemchonok.

By the way

Tomorrow, September 12, the Russian men's team starts at the 2018 World Championships, taking place in Italy and Bulgaria. This is the seventh attempt of the Russians to win the enchanted tournament. Being one of the strongest teams in the world, the national team has never won gold in post-Soviet history. In general, Russian men have only one medal set in six draws. This is silver 2002, won with the participation of Sergei Tetyukhin, Vadim Khamuttskikh, Pavel Abramov and other stars.

Russia is one of the favorites at the World Championships. Hurricane attack and physical power have always been her trump cards, but in the 2018 Nations League, Sergei Shlyapnikov’s team surprised with an excellent technique.

The tournament started on September 9 with matches of two host teams - Bulgaria and Italy. However, the main events begin precisely on September 12, when the bulk of the participants enter the fight.

In the “best” volleyball traditions, the World Championship formula was found at the back of a chemistry textbook. Three group stages at once, one after another! Moreover, the giants are forced to go through all rounds on an equal basis with outsiders, and the placement in the third group stage is determined by a draw. But the playoffs consist only of the semi-finals, final and bronze medal match, that is, this is the “Final Four”.

The Russian team will start in the first group round on September 12 with a match against Australia. The four strongest teams from each group advance from the first stage. This is an easy task for Russians. If Shlyapnikov's team takes one of the first two places, they will probably get a good draw in the second group stage.

In the final application of the Russian national team there is not a single player from St. Petersburg Zenit. The national champion Zenit-Kazan dominates, having delegated four.

Composition of the Russian national team at the 2018 World Cup

Binders

Alexander Butko. "Zenit-Kazan"

Sergey Grankin. "Dynamo", Moscow

Diagonal

Maxim Mikhailov. "Zenit-Kazan"

Victor Poletaev. "Kuzbass", Kemerovo

Blocking

Ilya Vlasov. "Dynamo"

Artem Volvich. "Zenit-Kazan"

Ilyas Kurkaev. Lokomotiv, Novosibirsk

Dmitry Musersky. Suntory Sunbirds, Japan

Finishers

Yuri Berezhko. "Dynamo"

Dmitry Volkov. "Fakel", Novy Urengoy

Egor Klyuka. "Torch"

Alexey Rodichev. "Locomotive"

Libero

Alexey Verbov. "Zenit-Kazan"

Alexander Sokolov. "Yaroslavich", Yaroslavl

Head coach: Sergei Shlyapnikov

The head coach of the country's men's volleyball team, Vladimir Alekno, a month after the Olympics in Rio, where the team was left without medals. The national team coach held this position three times. "AiF-Kazan" talks about Vladimir Alekno.

Vladimir Alekno. Photo: AiF/ Ruslan Ishmukhametov

Vladimir Alekno was born in Belarus, in Polotsk, in 1966. His mother is Belarusian by nationality, his father is Lithuanian.

He started playing volleyball at the age of 10, at the age of 14 he went to a sports boarding school in Minsk, and four years later he began playing for SKA Minsk, then moved to CSKA. With this club, he became the champion of the USSR twice in a row in 1985/1986 and 1986/1987, won the USSR Cup and the European Champions Cup. His titles include the champion of Bulgaria with Levski and the winner of the French Cup.

Coaching career

Alekno spent 13 years in France and it was there that he began his coaching career. In 1999, he first became a player-mentor in the French Tour, and after the team’s success in the national championship, he focused on coaching. Five years later, Toure became the champion of France. In the same 2004, he was invited to work in the Russian Super League, and in 2005 he became the coach of Dynamo. In the same season, under his leadership, the club won the Russian Championship (for the first time since 1951).

In 2007, he headed the Russian men's volleyball team. And in 2008, volleyball players won bronze medals at the Beijing Olympics, thereby repeating the success of Athens. That same year, Alekno's contract with the national team expired. He went to work at Dynamo Tattransgaz (Kazan), where he continues to work to this day. Now the team is called Zenit-Kazan. In Kazan, he repeats the success - in the 2008/2009 season, Zenit becomes the champion of Russia, and Alekno becomes the first coach who managed to win the championship with different clubs. Zenit-Kazan was a champion under his leadership for three seasons in a row - from 2010 to 2012, in 2011/2012 the club won the Champions League.

Successes and failures

From 2010 to 2012, Alekno again headed the Russian men's volleyball team. With him, the team becomes the champion of the London Olympics in 2012. On the eve of the New Year, Vladimir Alekno announced his intention to leave the national team. On July 17, a year before the start of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he returns to this post for the third time. However, the reigning Olympic champions remain without medals in Brazil. In the semi-finals of the competition they lose to the Brazilians with a score of 0:3, and in the match for third place they lose to the US team.

At the end of September 2016, Vladimir Alekno will focus on working at Zenit Kazan. For the last three years, the Kazan team has been playing for the club, and this year, repeating, his 20-year-old son Laurent also plays for the club. 29-year-old daughter Ekaterina lives abroad.

Coaching achievements

• Olympic champion (2012).
• Winner of the World League (2011).
• World Cup winner (2011).
• Bronze medalist of the Olympic Games (2008).
• Three-time Champions League winner (2011/12, 2014/15, 2015/16).
• Eight-time Russian champion (2005/06, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16), silver (2006/07) and bronze (2012/13) winner of the Russian Championship.
• Four times winner of the Russian Cup (2006, 2009, 2014, 2015),
• Four times winner of the Russian Super Cup (2010, 2011, 2012, 2015).
• French Champion (2003/04)

Awards and titles

• Order of Honor (February 2, 2013) - for victory at the London Olympics in 2012.
• Honored coach of Russia and Tatarstan since 2012
• Honorary citizen of Kazan since 2012.

The Russian men's volleyball team continues to prepare for the hardest marathon within the framework of the League of Nations, where the teams will have to play 15 matches in a month. The head coach of our team won the European Championship last year on his first try, but now a new cycle has begun, where it is necessary to set serious goals taking into account the autumn World Championship. Two friendly matches with Bulgaria (open and closed) have been won, and the start in the Nations League is ahead.

The coach of the Russian national team told the “Championship” how preparations for the new tournament are being built, as well as when volleyball players from Kazan “Zenith”, who won the Champions League a week ago, can join the team.

Sergey Konstantinovich, share your impressions of sparring with the Bulgarian team in preparation for the Nations League.
- Firstly, these control matches were very important for us in order to better understand what we are doing well today and what is not working. We have received information about what needs to be done in the near future. Of course, this was done in order to better prepare for the Nations League starting next week. A tall team with a strong serve was chosen as a sparring partner. We really wanted just such an opponent, so it’s good that they met us halfway. We also have away matches planned with the Bulgarians before preparing for the World Cup.

The first match, which was open to spectators and the press, ended with a score of 3:0 in favor of the Russian team. There was also an extra set, which the Russians lost. What conclusions could you draw from this game?
- The team was determined for this match, and the first game showed that when we are as concentrated as possible, the game works out for us. The first set turned out to be very convincing. Then the team lowered their concentration levels a bit, so we got a nerve-wracking ending. There were many mistakes that we then had to heroically level out with the help of character. But it is precisely for this reason that test matches are needed, which help identify the team’s problem areas. The third set also ended in our favor, but we already played the fourth set with an experimental lineup to see all the players involved in the training camp.

- Were you able to identify any other problem areas based on the results of this match?
- If we talk about problems, then this, of course, is a technique on which depends how much we will develop our attacking potential. We have great potential, but in order to realize it, this element is very important. We will work on this in the future. It also affected that in the position of a diagonal player, not everything was as we would like. Romanas Shkulevicius is getting into the rhythm of the national team's work; after all, he has been invited to the team for the first time. He needs time to adapt. Kostya Bakun was healing from an injury, so we are taking care of him now and only letting him in for a short time, so that he can feel his partners, and his partners feel him. Based on the closed game, I can only say that we won with a score of 3:2. That's why it's closed ( smiling). It is important that we win against the background of loads. I deliberately did not let go of the load because we had long competitions ahead, so we were not in optimal shape.

Russian volleyball players beat Bulgaria in a friendly match

Was the decision to play the second match behind closed doors to try out options for playing without prying eyes?
- In general, yes. Plus, we ourselves were interested in playing in Novogorsk and not traveling far, because, again, the guys are under serious stress. We wanted to play in familiar conditions. In addition, here at the base we have a gym and opportunities for recovery. There is a swimming pool and a sauna, which is very important in order to minimize the time we spend on the road.

- What are the team’s plans before the start of the Nations League in Poland?
- The team has a day off on Monday, and we resume work on Tuesday. On Wednesday we are flying to Poland directly for the first stage of the League of Nations.

- Have you already managed to sort out the opponents for this round of the tournament - the teams of South Korea, Poland and Canada?
- We are currently collecting information. Many teams are playing test matches in Europe these days. This applies to both Canada and Poland. We collect data and process it so that after the weekend we already have an idea of ​​​​the state of our opponents. So far this information is not enough. This is especially true for the South Korean national team, but we will have our last match with them in Poland, so there will be additional information about what the Koreans are like.

The Nations League is a real volleyball marathon, where teams have to play 15 matches in a month. How will you build your preparation based on this, and when will the guys from Kazan Zenit and Pavel Pankov from St. Petersburg Zenit join the team?
- We expect that Pavel Pankov will join us on the 22nd. He will fly to the League of Nations because we really need him as a setter. He is healing from an injury, and we accommodated him, giving him time to recover. We are waiting for him in the team. We hope that he will help the team. As for the Zenit Kazan players, we understood the fact that they had a tense championship and played international tournaments. We see that Maxim Mikhailov carries a colossal load in his club. The same applies to Artyom Volvich. If the situation develops in such a way that we have a good chance of getting to the final of the Nations League, then these guys will be ready to help us. We also count on Alexander Butko in preparation for the World Championship.

How to find the right balance in the Nations League in order to try the maximum number of players in the team, but still achieve results?
- At this stage, our goal is still to get into the Final Six of the League of Nations. At the same time, I would like to check the nearest reserve. You see how many newcomers we have at the training camp. We need to understand whether we can count on them in the future. The Nations League is indeed a very intense tournament, where you have to play 15 games in a month. It’s difficult to play such a tournament with just one squad, so we’re counting on giving the guys a chance. All this will allow us to draw the right conclusions when preparing for the World Championships.

The composition of the golden Russian team is significantly different from the one that represented the country a year ago at the Olympics and even from the one that coach Sergei Shlyapnikov experimented with last summer in the World League. “SE” chose the golden six of young players who were not spoiled by performances at big tournaments, who should shine in the current Olympic cycle and will compete for medals at the 2020 Olympics.

Age: 22
Team:"Torch" (Novy Urengoy)
Role: finisher

At the tournament in Poland, he showed himself to be a real team leader along with Maxim Mikhailov, who has been leading our team for many years. Volkov was included in the symbolic team of the European Championship as the best finisher. Dmitry always attracts attention on the court with his very emotional behavior, which, according to the volleyball player, helps him feel the game better. In his youth, he almost ended his career due to congenital back problems. He spent part of the 2016 season in a cast due to a hand injury.

Age: 22
Team:"Torch" (Novy Urengoy)
Role: blocking

The 212 cm tall giant played for the national team at the 2015 European Championships, but did not qualify for the Rio Olympics. Coach Vladimir Alekno had questions about the dedication of the young volleyball player. However, Sergei Shlyapnikov returned Vlasov to the lineup, and Ilya proved himself to be excellent at the preliminary stage of the World League. On the eve of the Final Six, he suffered a leg injury, which forced him to miss the decisive segment of the World League and the Wagner Memorial. But he managed to recover in time for the European Championships.

Age: 26 years
Team:"Zenit-Kazan"
Role: blocking

He became famous for the phrase: “Whoever comes to the Russian national team and does not want to play can be burned at the stake.” He made his debut in the national team while still a player for Lokomotiv Novosibirsk in 2013 and immediately became the European champion. In the spring of 2016 he moved to Zenit Kazan. He looked great at the Rio Olympics, where he made the symbolic team. At the European Championships in Poland I was remembered for my selfless play in defense and reliable attack.

Maxim ZHIGALOV. Photo by Fyodor USPENSKY, "SE"

Age: 28 years
Club:"Belogorye"
Role: diagonal

In almost all matches of the European Championship, Sergei Shlyapnikov substituted Zhigalov at the end of the games, and Maxim justified the trust by making the most important aces. Zhigalov's 35 serves in Poland included 10 aces with 7 errors. In 2014, Maxim was disqualified for six months and missed part of the Belogorye season for failing to show up for the national team's training camp, but then realized his mistake and was forgiven.

Age: 22
Club:"Torch" (Novy Urengoy)
Role: finisher

Hero and anti-hero of the European Championship at the same time. Before the start of the tournament, the 22-year-old Fakel finisher was injured and even risked missing the tournament. However, the coaching staff still decided to take the volleyball player to Poland. Klyuk did not have time to get into ideal shape, so he sometimes made mistakes that aroused emotions among the fans, the coaching staff, and Yegor himself. In one of these episodes in the finale, he threw a bottle of water out of frustration. The throw was unsuccessful: the lid came off, water spilled across the court, and the match had to be paused to wipe the floor.

Age: 23 years old
Club:"Lokomotiv" (Novosibirsk)
Role: blocking

The Novosibirsk Lokomotiv player achieves success with the national team with enviable regularity. In 2013, he won the World Youth Championship with her, and two years later celebrated his victory at the Universiade. By the way, it was then that Vladimir Alekno invited him to the main team of the country for World League matches. At the European Championships, Kurkaev mostly came as a substitute, but did not spoil the overall picture and established himself as a person you can rely on.

SYMBOLIC TEAM OF THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP 2017
MVP (Most Valuable Player): Maxim MIKHAILOV (Russia)
Binder: Sergey GRANKIN (Russia)
Diagonal: Georg GROSER (Germany)
Blocking: Srečko LISINAC (Serbia), Markus BOHME (Germany)
Finishers: Denis KALIBERDA (Germany), Dmitry VOLKOV (Russia)
Libero: Lovi STUER (Belgium).

On September 28, 2018, the World Volleyball Championship among women's national teams begins. The head coach of the Russian national team, Vadim Pankov, has already announced the final composition of his team.

The Russian application consists of 14 volleyball players who will defend the honor of the country at the upcoming World Cup. In order to advance to the playoff stage of the main volleyball tournament, Russian athletes must defeat five teams that are in the same group with them.

Vadim Pankov decided to take 14 athletes to the largest volleyball tournament. The most widely represented players are those who can play in the position of “player”. The head coach called Irina Voronkova, Anna Kotikova, Ksenia Parubets and Olga Biryukova to the national team, who can play in this position.

The coaching staff will have a very wide choice regarding volleyball players who play the role of a “blocking player.” Irina Koroleva, Irina Fetisova, Ekaterina Efimova and Ekaterina Lyubushkina were called up to the 2018 World Championships. On the diagonals of the Russian national team, the composition will be quite predictable, since only two volleyball players were called up - Natalya Goncharova and Daria Malygina.

The role of the “link” in the matches of the Russian national volleyball team will be performed by either Evgenia Startseva or Tatyana Romanova. The functions of the “last defender”, or “libero”, will fall on the shoulders of Daria Talysheva or Alla Galkina. Thus, the head coach will have the opportunity to be flexible in the tactical transformations of the team, as well as make timely replacements for tired players.

Volleyball players of the Russian national team are already preparing for the upcoming tournament, which will be inaugurated in Japan on September 29, 2018. The initial draw has already been held, which determined the Russians' opponents in the first group stage. The Russians will have to compete with teams from Trinidad and Tobago, the USA, Azerbaijan, South Korea and Thailand.

The women's team has already begun preparations for the upcoming tournament. According to the coaching staff, the volleyball players want to repeat the current successes of the men's team, which not so long ago confidently beat the teams of the Netherlands and Italy, which were considered the favorites of their matches.

Experts say that this year the women's team has a very strong composition with good athletes, and the group in which the Russians will have to play is very passable. Of course, the USA is a tough opponent and the favorite of the group. Other teams may also become “dark horses” of the tournament. But the Russian team has every reason to compete for first place in the group and, as a result, for World Championship medals.