CL Trophy
“The titles and honours I won as a player do not count anymore,” stressed the coach of Jastrzebski Wegiel and the co-best player of the XX Century Lorenzo Bernardi. “We are of course very happy with the fact that we made the Final Four for the second time in our history and we are here to give our best. I am sure every team has come here with high expectations and nobody is happy with just participating in the Final Four. We want to show our best Volleyball and hopefully improve on the fourth place we had to be content with three years ago.”
The first semi-final match of what stands out as the Volleyball weekend of the year will see two Russian heavyweights – Zenit KAZAN and Belogorie BELGOROD – play each other at 2 pm local time. “We did what we had to do in the previous rounds and we have made the last stage of the tournament,” the legendary leader of Belogorie, Gennady Shipulin said. “The team is ready to fight and we have prepared the best way we could. We are evidently happy with our comeback in the Final Four after quite some years,” added Shipulin who was at the helm of the team already by the time BELGOROD won back-to-back titles in 2003 and 2004. The reigning Russian national champions will be able to count also on their captain and 2012 Olympic champion Taras Khtey for this Final Four; Khtey is back in action after missing most of the season due to injury.
The “Gladiators” – as they are dubbed by their fans – of Zenit KAZAN will also try to win yet another title after topping the charts in 2008 and 2012. They will be extra motivated after their friends of Dinamo won the women’s title last weekend in Baku and should they edge past their opponents here in Ankara, they would complete an unprecedented sweep for the capital city of Tatarstan. “We are glad with our participation in the Finals and are very motivated to display our best. We have come here knowing that we first have to play Belogorie in the semis. We know them very well, we have played each other three times this season and we always lost. This is a record that we want to change,” said team captain Alexander Volkov.
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