Attempt No. 5: Zenit goes to fight for trophy it lacks

Love triangle in Brazil

It is obvious that world championships can't have weak teams a priori. Let's be honest: the Argentinian duo UPCN and Bolivar, Asian and African champion won't be able to be in the trio of favourites. However, no one doubts that they will impose a fight and made the life of the European and Brazilian teams sour.

A true 'love triangle' has formed among Zenit, Trentino and Sada Cruzeiro. Zenit will do its best to win against the stubborn Brazilians who did not let Alekno and the team approach the trophy last year. And the Italians still remember the spring defeat in the major European competition. The Italian players from the national team who lost in the Olympiad in Rio against Brazil also have unsolved problems. Only the Kazan players have never had the world cup in this trio.

Sada Cruzeiro won the competition twice, while Trentino did it even four times. And Zenit had enough attempts. The Kazan team tried to get this 'cup' five times, though in vain. They were very close to it last year – they got a silver. In 2009 and 2011, our team won just a bronze.

What should Zenit count on?

People Z (it seems that the players of Zenit will be called so because of the latest marketing solutions) easily defeated Belogorie in the last match before the flight to Brazilian Betim. Belogorie is the only Russian team who won the Club World Championship. Then after the defeat in the Kazan Volleyball Centre, the head coach of the Belgorod players Aleksander Kosarev who assessed the power of a bit renewed Zenit with his team noted that any rival would find it difficult to win the Kazan players:

'If Zenit shows the same game in the semi-final or final as it did against Belogorie, the team will be able to achieve everything,' said Kosarev in an interview to Zenit's club channel.

Aleksandr Kosarev (right) assessed any rival would find it difficult to win the Kazan players

It is pleasant to hear praising opinions and flattering bows from domestic opponents, of course. But what do we have in the inventory in fact? After such a powerful start in the Russian Superleague, it seems that Zenit faces the Club World Championship in its best state, exclusive of Matthew Anderson who is not playing to the max after his injury. The American was the last player to return from the holiday. So it is natural he is far from his best shape.

Meanwhile, Wilfredo León and Maksim Mikhailov are playing well and scoring points with awesome constancy. His assists to Aleksander Butko are very cool. And the Siberian new player Artyom Volvich joined the team unbelievably quickly, so that sometimes it seems that this tall guy has always been in the team. He was the person who became a kind of 'airbag' when the admitted leaders got nervous in the match against Belogorie.

Will it be enough? I don't think that the refusal from the opposite Victor Poletaev's services who has been sent on loan has helped the team. He is scoring points not worse than León in his new team Kuzbass. Today he is a confident leader on the list of forwards. For example, he set a record in a last year's match against Fakel from Novy Urengoy where he had 35 points. And it happens in every match – there has not been a game in this season when the opposite has not scored 20 points. Would such a guy be helpful in Brazil? Yes, I think.

Who is against?

As we wrote, the Italian-Brazilian-Russian triangle is the major candidacy for the trophy. Trentino has had a good chance to be quits with their offenders, the Russians, for the Champions League and the Brazilians for the Olympic Games. Trentino's main stars are players of the national team who left Rio de Janeiro in August with silver medals on their necks. They are Simone Gianelli, outside hitters Oleg Antonov and Filippo Lanza, libero Massimo Colacci and Czech forward Jan Štokr. The Italians don't have an obvious leader. Neither does Zenit. But at the same time they have quite a stable and strong squad. Memories of the Champions League final are vivid for now. This is why I think there is no point in reminding what a tough fight the guys from Trentino showed Zenit.

Sada Cruzeiro certainly has not become weaker than in the last season

The hosts of the competition Sada Cruzeiro is another greater irritator for Alekno&Co. They certainly have not become weaker than in the last season even if they lost one of the leaders. New players substituted everything. The head coach of Egyptian El-Gaish Sherif El Shemerly repeated before the match against Zenit that he was afraid of the Russians and Brazilians the most for a reason.

'I hope we will be able to show a good level, though we will have to play with two strongest teams of the world – Zenit and Sada Cruzeiro. They are stronger than many national teams. We will try to do our best in the games with them,' the International Volleyball Federation cites the Egyptian coach's words.

Back to personnel reshuffles at Sada. Cuban Leal who gave a serious beating to the Kazan players in last year's final is still in the team. Then he scored 22 points during four sets. The team has also conserved its Olympic champion Isac. Another Rio champion and opposite Wallace left the team as well as Éder. But the team quickly found a substitution – another player of the national team Evandro. But the reigning winner of the contest has strengthened the position of central blocker where giant Simon is playing now. He is performing the major role in the team today.

One-hour fight

Even if there was an absolute absence of concentration in serve when our servers presented the Egyptians points themselves, even if the stands of Divino Braga were almost empty, Zenit won the first set easily with a double advantage, 25:14. There was an episode in the middle of the set when León and Mikhailov either lobbed or hit the net one by one. When it was Volvich's turn to serve, he decided to serve softly. But due to an excellent block of Aleksander Gutsalyuk, the Kazan players easily ended the set.

Maksim Mikhailov with 11 points was the best player of the match

At the beginning of the second set, Al-Gaish even opposed and fell behind with a margin of two points. Zenit corrected its serve a bit and quickly ended this set too — 25-19. Alekno started to field his leaders less and let almost all his players play. Aleksander Gutsalyuk, Evgeny Sivozhelez, Teodor Salparov, Denis Zemchenok tested the court during the second and third sets. Andrey Aschev also appeared at the beginning of the third set. In general, no one of Alekno's team can complain about a lack of playing time.

The final set began with 4-0 like in the first one. A half of them were aces. León appeared in the middle of the set and started to shoot ace after ace — 17-8 by the break. When Zenit had the first match point, our volleyball players relaxed and could not finish the set. The most famous player of the Egyptians Salah scored four points with his serve, three of which were aces. But they managed to cope with it — 25:15.

Opposite Maksim Mikhailov with 11 points was the best player of the match. The Kazan players will have a more serious exam on Friday — Cruzeiro will host our team with an absolutely different attendance.