The last of the titles of Talent Duyshebaev - with a touch of fiction. The 38-year-old coach, who was escorted from the players to the mentors by the whole handball world a year and a half ago, returned to the court and on Sunday brought his Ciudad Real to another high-profile victory.
Of course, he had time to get in shape in the last matches of the Champions League and the Spanish championship. But still: at such an age and at such a level, playing after a pause a year is unbelievable!
The state of emergency prompted the wonderful combination of Duyshebaev: an injury permanently disabled his favorite - the leading point guard of the club Uros Zorman. The coach reasonably reasoned that only he could completely replace a savvy Slovenian. As he looked into the water: already in Cologne, in the semifinal Super Bowl match against the Chekhov Bears, another club leader broke down in the first half - Belarus with a Slovenian passport Sergei Rutenko. In short, two had to be replaced at once.
Coped. On the first day, under his dispatch control, Ciudad Real in less than a quarter of an hour ate after the break a 7-ball gap from the Russians and by inertia reached a landslide victory.
And the next day, in the finals, the playing coach also laughed out and shoot himself, losing with 5 goals only to his recognized scorers: left-handed Croat Mirza Dzomba (9) and welterweight Alberto Entrerrios (6). The final duel against the owners of the site from Gummersbach was for the Spanish grand much easier than the semi-finals.
Let it sound encouraging for the Russian club. By the whim of fate, in the next two weekend, the “bears” of Vladimir Maximov will be hacked precisely with the “Gummersbach” - in the matches of the Champions League 1/8 finals.
In this sense, the super bowl prelude was instructive for the Russian champion. In both its parts, the Chekhovites after the startlingly spectacular first halves irrevocably lost courage and strength in the second.
The reason lies on the surface. Handball from year to year adds to the intensity of game action. Take a look at the results: in each of the four-day two-day matches of Cologne, each team exceeded the bar of 30 goals scored - and this is with a good goalkeeping game and commendable training of defenders!
“Bears” have practically never been able to fight in such sweatshops on home fronts. From season to season in the Russian Super League, an organized system of organized measures, like weeds, writhes out all sorts of attempts to compete with the Maximov club, which has concentrated in its hands the posts of the head coach of the team, the president and coach of the strongest club, and at the same time the general director of the Handball Union!
Resistance is futile. It does not have "bears" in their native forests. So they are lost before the rivals of European competitors, as soon as the match exceeds the middle there - closer to the notorious background of fatigue ...
Handball. Men. European Championship among clubs
Koln. Cologne Arena.
11/25. Semifinals. Gummersbach (Germany) - Lemgo (Germany) - 34:33 (19:18). Ciudad Real (Spain) - Chekhov Bears (Chekhov, Russia) - 37:34 (16:21) (goals of Russians: Ivanov - 7, Rastvortsev - 5, Evdokimov, Igropulo, Kovalev, Filipov - 4, Dibirov - 3, Chipurin - 2, Chernoivanov - 1).
11/26. Match for 3rd place. Lemgo - Chekhov Bears - 37:33 (17:20) (Rastvortsev - 8, Igropulo, Chipurin - 6 each, Filippov - 4, Dibirov, Kamanin - 3, Kovalev - 2, Ivanov - 1). The final. Ciudad Real - Gummersbach - 36:31 (18:13).
Tournament MVP - Daniel Narcisse (Gummersbach).
The best goalkeeper is Aprad Shterbik (Ciudad Real).
Top scorer - Mirza Jomba (Ciudad Real) - 17 goals.