The DG of the Russians of Lokomotiv Novosibirsk, Roman Valerievich Stanislavov together with the Bulgarian club coach, Plamen Konstantinov and the team captain Ilyas Kurkaev held a press conference in which in addition to commenting on the progress of the championship and the results of the season just ended, talked about the plans for the future one and the club’s incoming and outgoing market for 2024/2025
Roman Stanislavov went into detail about how much the staff will change, speaking about the arrival of Yoandy Leal, and the important departures, but also about the decision to sell Maksim Sapozhkov: “The market is quite tight at the moment. Japan has decided to register a second foreigner for each of the clubs. Many European players don’t come to Russia, so we have to proceed with what we have.
DEPARTURES – At the moment I can say that Konstantin Abaev will leave us. He continues his career abroad (in the SuperLega with Verona Volley ed.), this is a new challenge for him. He refused more advantageous offers, both from us and from other Russian clubs. He chased his dream. Igor Tisevich will go to his house, Sergei Savin – a legend, our symbolic player – will continue his career in another club. The two foreigners Martin Atanasov (destined for Galatasaray ed.) and Denis Karyagin leave the club for many reasons. Talking about Maksim Sapozhkov (who signed for Dinamo Moscow ed.) It’s difficult to make decisions about all our guys. But the main point is that everyone has to play. Only the starting sextet is always involved. Murashko, Klets and Sapozhkov are the first diagonal players. We bet on Kazachenkov. Whether it was a right or wrong choice, time will tell. We took on this responsibility and gave them over to make them grow.
ARRIVALS – As regards acquisitions, we quickly found an agreement with Igor Kobzar. I won’t talk about the amount, but he also came from a relegation – he came to work here for the coach and to get back to his best level. He worked with Ilyas Kurkaev and Dmitry Lyzik in the national team. Here everything is logical. The couple is from Surgut – Radzhab, Omar’s compatriot from the same village, one might say he is an older brother, and Ozhiganov. This is a well-established replacement. The names of the two foreigners are also known: Leal, a Cuban-Brazilian, will come to us after the Olympics. No need to introduce it, we haven’t had a player of this caliber in the team since Priddy. We are also bringing Marko Ivovic back to the team. We don’t think he’s a step backwards. Let’s take a man who is tested and already knows the environment. He knows what we need from him. We could wait for the Nations League, who will play in it. Last season we waited a long time, we don’t want to find ourselves in the same situation as Atanasijevic. We still want to keep half of our players, they have to practice in games.”
image taken from lokovolley.com
