Friedrichshafen – Kazan
In 82 minutes and in front of 3’100 spectators the hosts played their first home game at the ZF sports hall surrounded by a great atmosphere. The best scorer for VfB FRIEDRICHSHAFEN was opposite Ventceslav Simeonov with 12 points while Russian opposite Maxim Mikhaylov topped the charts with 14 for Zenit KAZAN.
Opening the first set last year’s gold medalists dominated with their block (6:8); the hosts couldn’t control the Russian giants but Juraj Zatko came in for Nikola Jovovic and Ventceslav Simeonov came in for Thomas Zass to try to turn things around for VfB. They revived the spirits with a few good points but KAZAN was determined to take the first set and run with it, finally closing it at 17-25.
In the second set Zenit started out strong but at the first technical time-out (7:8) the game was still very close. The Russians were imposing their height and power, but the Germans resisted as solid as they could. An ace by Rivera and a few good defense plays brought to the second technical time-out (13:16). That forced a time-out from Moculescu at 15:20 to try to put the game back on track. Consecutive points by Idi and Simeonov helped the Germans fight back and Russian coach Vladimir Alekno called a time-out at 19-22 before his side completed the second set (21-25).
Once again the third set started good for the hosts fighting back with good side-outs and making some blocks. Matthew Anderson came in for Yuri Berezhko for the Russians and Zenit went up by the first technical time-out at 7:8. The Germans kept fighting with good serves by Simeonov to put pressure on the Russian reception and take the lead (16:12). But once more the Russians imposed their height and power to dominate at 19:20. VfB came back 22:22 for the final points of the third set where KAZAN closed down the game with the score of 22-25.
“Normally it is hard to play against the local side but today it was easy for us to win 3-0”, Zenit KAZAN coach Alekno said. On the other hand VfB FRIEDRICHSHAFEN coach Stelian Moculescu said: “The team played well and we had a good reception; the only thing that was missing was finishing the points that could have made the difference”.
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