Egypt ready to achieve a
surprise against Russia
 Kazan,
Russia, June 14, 2007-: Egypt Men’s Volleyball team will start
the return matches of pool C of the intercontinental round of
the 2007 World League by meeting Russia in Kazan next Saturday
and Sunday 16 and 17 June in the fourth weekend of the
competition with the Egyptian team still seeking for the first
World League victory.
The Egyptian team arrived to Kazan after 24 hours journey as
they stayed 14 hours transit in Moscow before flying to Kazan on
Wednesday where they had the first training session at the Hall
of the match on Thursday. The Polish head coach of Egypt
Grzegorz Rys changed one player form the squad that played
Russia in Cairo in the third weekend as the opposite Mohamed
Gabal replaced the promising star Mohamed El Daabosy who
returned back to the junior team which prepare now to the World
Junior Championship in Morocco next month. The squad includes
the Italian based setter Abdalla Abdel Salam who played for
Treviso, the Italian League and cup champions and the team
captain Hamdy El Safi who returned back to the team against
Russia in Cairo last weekend after finishing the end year exams.
The line up includes also the strong right attacker Ahmed Salah
and the left attacker Saleh Fathy.
“We improved a lot this year in the World League than the last
edition and we need only to achieve a victory to go through this
big prestigious FIVB competition,” Said Rys. “The World League
is very useful this year for our team as it helped us to prepare
for the coming important competitions this year including the
African Nations Championship in South Africa, All Africa Games
in Algeria and the Olympic Qualifications at the end of this
year.” He added.
On the other hand the Russian coach Vladimir Alekno prepared his
team well since they returned back to Russia following their
straight sets victories over Egypt in both of the third weekend
matches. These victories put them at the top of Pool C with 11
points, one point ahead of Cuba which comes second. He said that
his team is thinking of a match by match and now they are
thinking only to defeat Egypt to secure the top of the pool
before playing Cuba home and Serbia away in the last two
weekends of the competition. “We have to take care of our match
against Egypt because they showed good performance in Cairo and
they are keen always to achieve a surprise.” Alekno said.
Russia lead Pool C till the end of the fourth weekend with 11
points from win- loss ratio of 5-1 while Egypt comes at the
bottom of the pool with 6 points from 0-6 record.
By Tarek Aladwar from Kazan,
Russia
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