The head coach of the national team Lyudmila Bodniyeva answered the questions of Handballfast upon the results of the Olimpbet Cup of Friendship, held in Moscow, two first places of which were won by the Russian national teams.
— Lyudmila Valeryevna, let’s start with a general question: did you like everything in the tournament? Or were there, as we say, certain drawbacks?
— Primarily, I am pleased that it was held. That the idea to divide the national team into two squads worked: the fight between our two teams turned out to be remarkable and due to the fact that the level of each of two teams was obviously lower than of an undivided one, we watched interesting enough plays with Belarus and China.
In general, the tournament has justified itself. Everyone was waiting for the third tour and the match Russia-1 — Russia-2. That’s what I told the girls: we won’t find stronger rivals at the moment, than ourselves. That’s exactly what happened. Probably, it wasn’t as exiting as it could have been against foreign opponents, but impressions concerning quality of play are positive.
— I wonder, if you hadn’t won, would you talk like that? I was just sitting on your bench and saw, how worried you were! And as you mentioned, you wanted to win…
— Of course, I sought to win, I can only confirm it. Well, how could it be otherwise, we are athletes! But believe me, if we hadn't won, but lost, for instance, one ball, that is, again, in the fight, which I wanted more than anything else as a coach of the national team, I would have been pleased either.
Russia-1:
goalkeepers — Evelina Anoshkina (Astrakhanochka), Polina Kaplina (CSKA);
left wings — Sofia Vasilyeva (Dinamo-Sinara), Victoria Shichkina (Astrakhanochka);
pivots — Olesya Goryacheva (Dinamo-Sinara), Anastasia Illarionova (CSKA);
right wings — Anastasia Starshova (Dinamo-Sinara), Olga Fomina (Lada);
left backs — Darya Statsenko (Rostov-Don), Polina Sharkova (Astrakhanochka);
playmakers — Ekaterina Dolmatova (Dinamo-Sinara), Valeria Kirdyasheva (Lada), Karina Sabirova (CSKA);
right back — Antonina Skorobogatchenko (CSKA).
Russia-2:
goalkeepers — Anastasia Ryabtseva (Astrakhanochka), Kira Trusova (CSKA);
left wings — Marianna Egorova (Zvezda), Ekaterina Levchina (Kuban);
pivots — Alena Amelchenko (Lada), Victoria Shamanovskaya (CSKA);
right wings — Yulia Managarova (Rostov-Don), Albina Murzalieva (CSKA);
left backs — Elena Mikhaylichenko (CSKA), Anastasiya Shavman (Kuban);
playmakers — Daria Dmitrieva (Krim, Slovenia), Milana Tazhenova (Rostov-Don);
right backs — Ekaterina Zelenkova (Rostov-Don), Olga Scherbak (Lada).
— You have repeatedly said, that divided players for teams with the expectation to be approximately equal, that you wanted to look at certain connections. It’s interesting to know, was there any at least one preference from players? Generally, should there be any initiative?
— Though we live in democracy, but within reasonable limits. That’s why this issue wasn’t even questioned. Of course, it was only coaches’ decision. Your question was confusing to me: no, we didn’t even consider the possibility of players’ preferences. And they perfectly understood it.
— Would you have done anything differently, if you were given such an opportunity? Or did all of your ideas work well?
— What do you mean? If we played another tournament, obviously, girls wouldn’t have played in the same squads. We would have mixed in a different way. Of course, we would have taken into consideration, what we had already seen and what we would like to see... Speaking about how the plan worked, fortunately, we guessed with the division. Not only the score, but also the course of play proved it.
— I don’t know whether it makes sense to return to the topic of Anna Vyakhireva. It seems, that she clearly explained everything in the interview to Handballfast. Should we, probably, recall those, who weren’t present but whom you wanted to see, except her?
— Firstly, we can come back to the talk about Anya, in order not to have any omissions. Indeed, we talked many times with her, discussed that we need to gather the maximum amount of main players. So that everyone could plunge into the atmosphere of the team, just meet with each other. The national team should periodically gather in its best line-up! And Anya readily responded to the offer.
We discussed all the logistics in January and February, developed an action plan. But then two aspects in combination affected our joint decision. The first one is a relapse of her old injury: sometimes even just a rest helps in this regard. Secondly, it turned out that with the current travel-related complexities Anya would have arrived by the beginning of the tournament itself after the final of the Cup of Norway, she would have missed the training.
Altogether, eventually the feasibility of her arrival was in question. And together we came to the conclusion that she would miss this training session. There’s no need to look for a double bottom.
And now about those, who could also have played in the tournament. They are Maria Dudina, Ekaterina Ilyina, Kristina Kozhokar, Ksenia Makeeva, Valeria Maslova — all of them could have been invited to the national team, but various reasons prevented. Certainly, we are talking primarily about health-related issues. Maslova is in the process of recovery. We are in contact with Lera as well, she was ready to come, and here it was also our mutual decision. Her physical readiness and logistics were of great importance.
— Speaking about youth team players, Yulia Babenko and Sofia Vasilyeva immediately come to mind. Why were they divided this way: the first to the youth team, the second — to the national team?
— We are in good working relationship with Alexey Nikolaevich Gumyanov, it goes without saying that discussed this issue. And divided the players in this way. Vasilyeva had more chances to receive good time on the position of left wing, she claims the team line-up. And the youth team needed Babenko, they also played against Belarus.
— Something about the competitors, though you have already mentioned the matter. But to sum it all up: did the Belarusians offer resistance and are the Chinese growing?
— Yes, I liked the Belarusian national team very much in this tournament. The team was playing with inspiration, with such a fighting spirit. And China also deserves praising.
All the first halves the Chinese players held at a high for themselves level. And I explain the lost second halves with insufficient rotation and great difference between the first and second squad. And it shouldn’t be forgotten that their team is young. There are players born in 2004 and even in 2005… So, the tournament was undoubtedly successful for the rivals.
— It looks like there’s no longer a problem with pivots, that has been so much discussed, isn’t it? Illarionova looked great, Shamanovskaya successfully debuted…
— Yes, generally the pivots pleased. Not only named by you. This tournament will also be on Amelchenko’s account. I liked Goryacheva as well. We have things to work on, but we see the prospect. But I never said that we had problems with pivots. Everyone we are discussing right now are young enough, they should be given time, chances to get experience, someone needs, as it is said, mileage. Someone gives a shot earlier, someone later. And yes, I would like to congratulate separately Vika Shamanovskaya with her debut in the Russian national team!
— Without personalizing: our goalkeeper question isn’t so serious, is it?
— Well, why without getting personal? Let’s analyze individually. Polina Kaplina showed herself great on this tournament. She played all three games reliably and at a high level. Probably, a little bit of criticism could be expressed: Evelina Anoshkina didn’t look so confident. Perhaps, an instant form had an impact, as well as the fact that she didn’t spend so much time on the court in her club during recent games. They are goalkeepers — they have a delicate organization. Everything can change differently the next time.
In Russia-2 team both Kira Trusova and Nastya Ryabtseva showed a good percentage, they played approximately on one level. But anyway, I suppose, it’s impossible to say that we can be unconcerned about the goalkeeper issue at all. It happens, that suddenly they perform together not the best match. Thus, quite recently all our three goalkeepers couldn’t even boast an average percentage in Belarus.
— Since the head coach of the national team is ready to a conversation on certain personalities, I can’t loose an opportunity to ask about Mikhaylichenko and Skorobogatchenko. Probably, you heard an opinion, that Lena and Tonya didn’t play as bright as they could…
— I haven’t heard it, but I can clear this moment. By the way, Scherbak wasn’t fully involved as well. The point is that all these handball players — Lena, Tonya and Olya — weren’t on the passed training session in the optimal physical form due to all sorts of injuries. For this reason we made a decision not to load them in the training process on one hundred percent and, whenether possible, to reduce their amount of minutes on the tournament, if I may say so. In this case we have absolutely no doubt in their attitude to the play, but we are sympathetic to necessity of a certain pause in physical activities.
— In conclusion — a few words about the prospects of the national team. It’s understandable, that isn’t easy to formulate it in the current circumstances...
— Yes, it turned out that we are still in a state of unawareness of how events will develop. But we talked with girls and came to a conclusion: if there is at least small chance to play at the World Championship and at the Olympic Games, we have to be ready and stay in the working condition. It was important for me to receive the players response — and I got it.
Photo: Alena Pastushenko / Handballfast
