Dinamo
After the summer break and the 2013 Women’s EuroVolley, all players finally found their way to the capital city of Tatarstan to share their expectations about the coming campaign with fans and media.
This summer Dinamo KAZAN did not change much and actually wanted to keep the group that had successfully retained their title in the Russian Superleague. The only exception is Italy’s wing-spiker Antonella Del Core who will replace Lesya Evdokimova (Makhno) in the starting six of Dinamo. Makhno has decided to take a break from Volleyball to focus on her family duties. Another four players – Daria Rossamakhina, Irna Malkova, Anna Melnikova, and Maria Popova – have all joined Dinamo KAZAN for the coming season.
Even though Russia won gold at this year’s EuroVolley in Berlin, quite surprisingly no player from Dinamo KAZAN was starring there after Maria Borodakova was dropped from the list of fourteen retained by head coach Yuriy Marichev only two weeks prior to the start of the tournament. “I do not think there is any kind of conspiracy against our club. The head coach is making his choices and he has the right to nominate the players he wants. After this long break, this means that our players will be even more motivated to chase victories” said Club Director Sergey Chernyshev at the official presentation held at the local Kremlin in Kazan.
Dinamo is interested in applying to host the Final Four of Europe’s elite club competition. “Even though there is no guarantee that we would win, we are not afraid of applying and possibly hosting the last act of the competition. I know our players would display their best to win” said Club President Leonid Baryshev.
“We still have one major goal to achieve which is to win the CEV Volleyball Champions League” added head coach Rishat Gilyazutdinov. “If Kazan gets the right to host the Final Four, we may be a little closer to achieve our goal. Starting from the experience from the past years, I can only say that all the goals we have set are within our reach”.
“We will do everything we can to make the citizens of Kazan proud of us” concluded team captain Maria Borodakova. “We are very motivated and want to win the Champions League this year but at the same time we are also intending to retain our title in the national league”.
Dinamo KAZAN will debut in the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League this coming October 24 in Zurich against Volero but will first have to complete the semi-final stage of the Russian Cup taking place in Tyumen.
For more information from this country click on Russia.
To read more about this competition check out our CEV Champions League 2013/2014 W coverage page.
