The head coach of the women’s national team of Russia, Vladimir Kuzyutkin spoke about the host team at the press conference of Yeltsin Cup today. The 15th edition of Boris Yeltsin Cup will be held in Ekaterinburg, Russia from 26 to 30 June.
“The four leading players of the team, namely Tatiana Kosheleva, Natalia Goncharova, Yana Shcherban and Ekaterina Pankova will not participate in the tournament. Shcherban unfortunately was injured and did not even participate in the World Championship 2018 European Qualification tournament. At first, I planned to let Shcherban play in this tournament, however she has not yet recovered.” said Kuzyutkin.
“We are intentionally adopting a less stronger composition with new players in order to fully observe their performance. The composition is now even weaker than as planned, in terms of players’ mentality strength, not physical one. Not just that three key players are on leave for 10 days, we are also facing Shcherban’s injury which is unexpectedly interfering in the progress.” he added.
“At the same time, we do not want to disappoint our audience. We are still able to show our fighting spirit and our defense in the game, that is what available to us today. Only a week of training is too short for us to make sure of everything, we need to back it up with games. Our opponents are strong and I have checked their compositions. I do not see a generational change in them. On the other hand, I would like to see the “new blood” in our team, so we will split our composition. What will come out of this? We’ll see “- quoted Kuzyutkin at TASS.
